the ceremony, says of the orator:
"It was not a _Tartuffe_, it was not a _Pantaloon_: it was a prelate of
distinction, preaching with dignity, and going over the entire life of
that Princess with an incredible address; passing by all the delicate
passages, mentioning, or leaving unmentioned, all the points that he
ought to speak or be silent upon. His text was "Fallax pulchritudo,
mulier timens Deum laudabitur." Assuredly many delicate points must have
presented themselves in the life of a princess who had been a politician
and a Frondeuse, a gallant woman, and a Jansenist. Yet Father Talon, a
Jesuit, who was present at her death, was fond of repeating on fitting
occasions: "Jansenist as much as you will, she died the death of a
saint."

There were three well-defined periods in the agitated life of the
Duchess de Longueville--and happily the end was conformable to the
beginning, to neutralise, as it were, the censurable middle part. But
admitting such condonation, does not that same _mezza camin_ constitute
the seduction which that brilliant period exercises over almost every
writer who seeks to portray it, over those even who indulge in ecstacies
on the score of her penitence? So the prestige of beauty and the charms
of mind traverse centuries to win unceasingly posthumous admiration!
These are the qualities which give a more undying interest to the career
of Madame de Longueville even than the grandeur of her soul; for that is
an incontestable feature which all must recognise, whether partisans or
adversaries:--in spite of her errors and deviations, she certainly
possessed greatness of soul. If a terse judgment then were summed up of
her character, it might be said without flattery that, take her all in
all, she was not unworthy of being the sister of the great Conde.

With the opinions of such astute statesmen as Cardinal Mazarin and Don
Louis de Haro upon the mischievous tendencies of political women, it may
be well, in the instance of Madame de Longueville to couple the
sentiments of an acute and highly intellectual writer of our own day,
who showed herself a subtle analyst of character. Mrs. Jameson,
discoursing upon the characteristics of Shakespere's women (in the form
of a dialogue between Alda and Medon) calls them "affectionate, thinking
beings, and moral agents; and then witty, as if by accident, or as the
Duchess de Chaulnes said of herself 'Par la grace de Dieu.'

"Or," retorts _Medon_, the male interloc