sillac, to whom indeed he was nearly
related, and whom he kept well acquainted with the course of his amours.
His suit to the lovely Duchess proving, as has been said, entirely
unsuccessful, Miossens eventually left the field clear to Marsillac, the
brave and simple soldier giving place to the self-seeking man of the
world.

CHAPTER II.

THE DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE DRAWN INTO THE VORTEX OF POLITICS AND CIVIL
WAR BY HER LOVE FOR LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

WE have glanced rapidly over the fairest period of Madame de
Longueville's youth, over those years wherein the splendour of her
success in the ranks of fashion was not obtained at the expense of her
virtue. The time approaches in which she is about to yield to the
manners of her age, and to the long-combatted wants of her heart. The
love which she inspired in others, she is, in turn, about to feel
herself, and it is to engage her, at the age of twenty-eight or
twenty-nine, in a fatal connection, which will make her unmindful of all
her conjugal duties, and turn her most brilliant qualities against
herself, against her family, and against France.

Let us now relate briefly what we know of Madame de Longueville from the
moment of our last mention of her up to the commencement of 1648. There
is nothing recorded which can authorise the supposition that before the
close of 1647 Madame de Longueville had ever passed the limits of that
noble and graceful gallantry which she saw everywhere held in honour,
the praises of which she heard celebrated at the Hotel de Rambouillet as
well as at the Hotel de Conde, in the great verse of Corneille and in
the turgid effusions of Voiture. At the time of the duel between Guise
and Coligny, in 1644, she had seen her twenty-fifth summer. Each
succeeding year seemed only to enhance the power of her charms, and that
power she delighted in exhibiting. A thousand adorers pressed around
her. Coligny was, perhaps, nearest to her heart, but had not, however,
touched it. But one cannot, with impunity, trifle with love. That tragic
adventure of the eldest of the Chatillons perishing, in the flower of
his youth, by the hand of the eldest of the Guises was quickly echoed by
song and romance through every _salon_, and cast a gloom upon the
destiny of Madame de Longueville, and gave her, at an early period, a
fame at once aristocratic and popular, which prepared her wonderfully to
play a great part in that other tragi-comedy, heroic and gallant, c