ings "for which she should have
thought herself quite unfitted, if she had not found she did them very
well." The enthusiasm she had inspired kept itself unabated, for she
really deserved it. She was everywhere recognized as head of affairs; the
officers of the army drank her health on their knees, when she dined with
them, while the trumpets sounded and the cannons roared; Conde, when
absent, left instructions to his officers, "Obey the commands of
Mademoiselle, as my own"; and her father addressed a despatch from Paris
to her ladies of honor, as Field-Marshals in her army: "A Mesdames les
Comtesses Marechales de Camp dans l'Armee de ma Fille contre le Mazarin."

III.

CAMPAIGN THE SECOND.

Mademoiselle went back to Paris. Half the population met her outside the
walls; she kept up the heroine, by compulsion, and for a few weeks held
her court as Queen of France. If the Fronde had held its position, she
might very probably have held hers. Conde, being unable to marry her
himself, on account of the continued existence of his invalid wife, (which
he sincerely regretted,) had a fixed design of marrying her to the young
King. Queen Henrietta Maria cordially greeted her, lamented more than ever
her rejection of the "bashful" Charles II., and compared her to the
original Maid of Orleans,--an ominous compliment from an English source.

The royal army drew near; on July 1, 1652, Mademoiselle heard their drums
beating outside. "I shall not stay at home to-day," she said to her
attendants, at two in the morning; "I feel convinced that I shall be
called to do some unforeseen act, as I was at Orleans." And she was not
far wrong. The battle of the Porte St. Antoine was at hand.

Conde and Turenne! The two greatest names in the history of European wars,
until a greater eclipsed them both. Conde, a prophecy of Napoleon, a
general by instinct, incapable of defeat, insatiable of glory, throwing
his marshal's baton within the lines of the enemy, and following it;
passionate, false, unscrupulous, mean. Turenne, the precursor of
Wellington rather, simple, honest, truthful, humble, eating off his iron
camp-equipage to the end of life. If it be true, as the ancients said,
that an army of stags led by a lion is more formidable than an army of
lions led by a stag, then the presence of two such heroes would have given
lustre to the most trivial conflict. But that fight was not trivial upon
which hung the possession of Paris and the fate o