stion. I pledged my word to
Madame de Longueville to fight him on the Place Royale, and I cannot
fail in that promise."[4] There was no stopping a cavalier in such a
chivalrous course as that, and Madame de Longueville would not have been
the sister of the victor of Rocroy--a heroine worthy of sustaining
comparison with those of Spain, who beheld their lovers die at their
feet in the tournament--had she not been present at the duel between
Guise and Coligny. It is asserted, therefore, that on the 12th of
December she was stationed in an hotel on the Place Royale belonging to
the Duchess de Rohan, and that there, concealed behind a window-curtain,
she had witnessed the discomfiture of her _preux chevalier_.

[4] Mad. de Motteville.

Then, as now, it was verse--that is to say, the ballad--which set its
seal on the popular incident of the moment. When the event was an
unlucky one, the song was a burlesquely pathetic complaint, and always
with a vein of raillery running through it. Such was the effusion with
which every _ruelle_ rang, and it was really set to music, for the
notation is still to be found in the _Recueil de Chansons notees_,
preserved at the Arsenal at Paris. It ran thus:--

"Essuyez vos beaux yeux,
Madame de Longueville,
Coligny se porte mieux.
S'il a demande la vie,
Ne l'en blamez nullement;
Car c'est pour etre votre amant
Qu'il veut vivre eternellement."

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

THE DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE AND THE DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

THAT Madame de Longueville witnessed the duel on the Place Royale seems
to rest on no reliable authority. Such a trait is so utterly at variance
with her character that its attribution would impute to her the manners
of a semi-Italianised princess of the Valois race. There are besides no
sufficient grounds for believing that her affections had for a moment
been given to Coligny, though doubtless her innate tenderness must have
been touched by his chivalrous love and devotion. Miossens, afterwards
better known as Marshal d'Albret, next tried in vain to win a heart
which had hitherto appeared insensible to the master-passion, but after
an obstinate persistence was ultimately constrained to relinquish all
hope. When, in 1645, M. de Longueville went as minister-plenipotentiary
to the Congress of Muenster, the young Duchess remained in Paris, her
element being still the social sphere of the Court solely--a taste for
political