ter the Fronde in
the midst of all sorts of political troubles and diplomatic intrigues:
conferences innumerable were held beneath her roof, and in that tortuous
labyrinth she wandered and manoeuvred to her heart's delight. Sometimes
she laboured to reconcile Conde with Anne of Austria, sometimes to
reunite Gaston and Conde, or perhaps the Queen and Madame de
Longueville. She often failed, it is true, in these attempts, and
meanwhile Mazarin, with more address, setting in motion in his retreat
beyond the frontier the most powerful machinery, and making magnificent
promises, again appeared above the political horizon--winning over his
enemies one after another through his secret agents; at one time it was
Chateauneuf, at another Gondi, whom he made for good and all a cardinal;
at another it was Madame de Chevreuse. He had passed his word to the
Princess Palatine that he would some day give her the post of
superintendent of the young Queen's household: he did so, in fact, but
on condition that she should relinquish it two months later to the
Countess de Soissons, which she did in all good faith. Then she withdrew
from court, somewhat undeceived no doubt touching men and things
therein, if it really were the case that she ever had indulged in great
illusions concerning court life.

Years rolled away, however: Mazarin died. Court intrigue with her was at
an end. The personages who had been mixed up in the Fronde hurly-burly,
so menacing in reality, so puerile in aspect, so insignificant as an
isolated fact, and so formidable as a symptom, appeared affected by that
decay which change of circumstances more than lapse of time imposes upon
men and ideas. All that sort of thing was out of fashion. The reign of
the _Grand Monarque_ was in all its heyday. Besides, the Palatine was
no longer young; she had married her daughters, and dwelt in seclusion.
And it was when living thus tranquilly that a rapid, unforeseen,
enthusiastic conversion came upon her like a surprise. For all relating
thereto, we must listen to Bossuet, who dwells upon it in his funeral
oration upon the Princess. His eloquence revels in relating the miracles
suddenly wrought in such a soul as hers. He expatiates on that sudden
change with an apostolic joy and an incomparable majesty: it was a
subject worthy of him, the brilliant narrator of solemn events. It was
exoteric to that life upon which it was so difficult to pronounce an
eulogium; he was not trammelled i