ook up the flambeau and
bore it on, bright and rapid, to the goal, so should the light of
History be passed steadily and carefully from hand to hand, and its
sacred flame--the Truth--be kept ever burning clearly onward in the
course of time.

CHAPTER II.

THE DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE.

SIDE by side with the two great statesmen, Richelieu and Mazarin, the
clever, daring, vivacious, charming Marie de Rohan occupied a more
elevated position, and certainly played a more extended part, than any
other of the political women who were her contemporaries during the
stirring times of the first half of the seventeenth century.

Seductive, with irresistible fascination of manner, singular grace and
animation; of pregnant wit, though quite uneducated; devoted to
gallantry, and too high-spirited to heed propriety; obeying no control
save that of honour; despising, for those she loved, danger, fortune,
and opinion; rather restless than ambitious; risking willingly her own
life as well as that of others; and after having passed the best part of
her existence in intrigue of every kind--thwarted more than one
plot--left more than one victim on her path--traversed nearly the whole
of Europe, by turns an exile and a conqueress who not unfrequently
dazzled even crowned heads; after having seen Chalais lay his head on
the block, Chateauneuf turned out of the ministry and imprisoned, the
Duke de Lorraine well-nigh despoiled of his territories, Buckingham
assassinated, the King of Spain embroiled in a war of ever-recurring
disasters, Anne of Austria humiliated and overcome, and Richelieu
triumphant; sustaining the struggle, nevertheless, even to its bitter
end; ever ready, in that desperate game of politics--become to her a
craving and a passion--to descend to the darkest cabals or adopt the
rashest resolves; with an incomparable faculty of discerning the actual
state of affairs or the predominant evil of the moment, and of strength
of mind and boldness of heart enough to grapple with and destroy it at
any cost; a devoted friend and an implacable enemy; and, finally, the
most formidable foe that Richelieu and Mazarin, in their turn,
encountered:--such was the celebrated Duchess de Chevreuse whom we have
seen alternately courted and dreaded by the two great political
master-spirits of her time, the founders of monarchical unity in France.

When the Fronde broke out, that ardent factionist rushed once more to
Brussels, and there brou