alled
the Fronde. The glory of her brother was reflected upon her, and she
responded to it somewhat by her own success at Court and in the
_salons_. She acquired more and more the manners of the times. Coquetry
and witty talk formed her sole occupation. Her delicate condition not
permitting her to accompany M. de Longueville to Muenster, in June, 1645,
she remained in Paris. It was the place above all others in which she
delighted, and whether her heart had received some slight wound, or
whether it was still entirely whole, it is clear that she was not very
glad nor greatly charmed to find herself, after her accouchement in the
spring of 1646, under the cold, grey sky of Westphalia, again beside a
husband who was not, as Retz says, the most agreeable man to her in the
world. It is not difficult to divine the feelings with which that petted
beauty of the Hotel de Rambouillet must have left Corneille, Voiture,
and all the elegancies and refinements of life, to take up her abode at
Munster amongst a set of foreign diplomatists only speaking German or
Latin. To her it was doubly an exile, for her native soil was not
merely France--but Paris, the Court, the Hotel de Conde, Chantilly, the
Place Royale, the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre.[1] However, there was
nothing for it but to obey the marital summons, and to set off with her
step-daughter, Mademoiselle de Longueville, who was already more than
twenty years of age. The Duchess quitted Paris on the 20th of June,
1646, with a numerous escort under the command of Montigny, lieutenant
of M. de Longueville's guards. The entire journey from Paris to Munster
was a continual ovation. The Duke went as far as Wesel to meet her.
Turenne, who then commanded on the Rhine, treated her to the spectacle
of an army drawn up in order of battle, and which he manoeuvred for
her amusement. Was it on that occasion that the great captain, well
known to have been always impressionable to female beauty, received the
ardent impulse which was renewed at Stenay in 1650, and which,
graciously but prudently acknowledged by Madame de Longueville, always
remained a close and tender tie between them? On the 22nd of July she
made her triumphal entry into Munster. During the entire autumn of 1646
and the winter of 1647 she was really the Queen of the Congress. Her
beauty and grace of manner won homage equally from the grave
diplomatists as from the great commanders who were there assembled.

[1] In which the