n the _Day of Dupes_, the period
at which his memoirs commence. Two years previously, in 1628, he had
married at Mirebeau a rich and beautiful heiress of Burgundy, Andree de
Vivonne, only daughter of Andre de Vivonne, Baron of Berandiere and
Chasteigneraye, Grand Falconer of France, Captain in the Guards of the
Queen-Mother, Marie de' Medici, Councillor of State, and one of the most
trusty followers of Henry IV. The Prince de Marsillac was at first in
great favour at Court, notwithstanding his father's misconduct, but he
suddenly compromised himself in a very imprudent way. Closely intimate
with that virtuous maid-of-honour, Marie de Hautefort, whom the
saturnine Louis XIII. loved as passionately as his peculiar temperament
permitted, and also with Mademoiselle de Chemerault, as lovely as she
was witty, he was by them hurried into a blind devotion to the cause of
their unhappy mistress and queen, Anne of Austria, "the only party,"
says he, with unusual candour, "that I ever honestly followed." And very
soon his confidential relations with the persecuted princess became so
marked as necessarily to excite Richelieu's suspicions, the more so that
he ventured to speak of the Cardinal's administration in the boldest
terms. His friends advised him to retire from Court, at least
temporarily; but, as he wished to employ his time usefully, he joined as
a volunteer the army of Marshal de Chastillon, who, with Marshal de la
Meilleraye, beat Prince Thomas of Savoy at Avein. After behaving with
distinction there, he returned, when the campaign was over, to Court,
exhibiting a conduct still more independent, and which resulted in
forcing him to rejoin his father at Blois.

It was through the proximity of his father's chateau of Verteuil to
Poitiers, where the Duchess de Chevreuse was then living in banishment
from Court, that the Prince de Marsillac first came to ally himself with
the illustrious political adventuress. At the time when La Rochefoucauld
obtained political notoriety, a crisis occurred in France in national
manners, sentiments, and feelings. The nobles, long kept under by the
strong hand of Richelieu, were again rising into faction, and a spirit
of intrigue had seized upon everyone.

Although still young, Rochefoucauld had renounced enterprises in which
the heart is alone concerned. No longer engrossed with love, he was
wholly given up to ambition; and in order to avenge himself of the Queen
and Mazarin, who had not in