ion of Louis XIV. completing his eleventh
year; when a grand ball was given at the Hotel de Ville, at which the
young King, with all the principal members of the royal family and the
Court, were present. The Queen's orders were received with regard to all
the arrangements, every person of distinction being invited by her
command, except the Duchess de Longueville. That princess, influenced by
discontent, it is supposed, at the reception of the royal family in
Paris, had remained at Chantilly, on the pretence of drinking some
mineral waters in the neighbourhood. The Queen seized the same pretext
not to invite her, replying to those who pressed her to do so, that she
would not withdraw her from the pursuit of health; but at length the
Prince de Conde himself, demanded that she should receive a summons; and
his support was of too much consequence, and the bonds which attached
him to the Court too slight, for the Queen to trifle with his request.

To the surprise and dissatisfaction of most persons, however, Anne of
Austria commanded that the ball should take place in daylight;
acknowledging, in her own immediate circle, that it was in order to
mortify the ladies attached to the Fronde, the principal part of whom
employed methods of enhancing their beauty and heightening their
complexion to which the searching eye of day was very inimical. Human
malice, of course, took care that the Queen's motive should be
communicated to all the higher circles of Paris; and as vanity is not
only a more pugnacious passion, but a much more pertinacious adversary
than any other, the words of Anne of Austria rendered many opponents
irreconcilable, who might otherwise have been gained to her cause: the
family of the Prince de Conde naturally being among the number.

France was then able to count the cost of having created a
hero--_expendere Hannibalem_--a prince _a la Corneille_, who carried his
gaze to the stars, and only spoke to mortals from the summit of his
trophies. His sister, Madame de Longueville, had also in the same
fashion soared into the sphere of a goddess. The one and the other, in
the empyrean, no longer distinguished their fellow mortals from such a
height save with a smile of disdain. Great folks, as a contemporary
tells us, kicked their heels in their antechambers for hours, and, when
granted an audience, were received with yawning and gaping.

The reconciliation effected during the preceding year was rather, as has
been s