uary quitted Paris for Rouen. The band of
gentlemen who had gathered round the beautiful Frondeuse thereupon
melted away, and Mademoiselle de Longueville, her step-daughter,
afterwards Duchess de Nemours, quitted her to take refuge in a convent.
As Montigny, the commandant at Dieppe, declared that it was impossible
to hold the fortress, the Duchess left the place by a secret portal,
followed by her women and some few gentlemen. She held her way for two
leagues on foot along the coast to the little port of Tourville, in
order to reach a small vessel which she had prudently hired in case of
need. On reaching the point of embarkation the sea was breaking so
furiously in surf on shore, the tide being so strong and the wind so
high, that Madame de Longueville's followers entreated her not to
attempt to reach the vessel. But the Duchess, dreading less the angry
waves than the chance of falling into the Regent's power, persisted in
going to sea. As the state of the tide and weather rendered it
impossible for a boat to get near the shore, a sailor took her in his
arms to carry her on board, but had not waded above twenty paces when a
huge roller carried him off his feet, and he fell with his fair burden.
For an instant the poor lady believed that she was lost, as in falling
the sailor lost his hold of her and she sank into deep water. On being
rescued, however, she expressed her resolve to reach the vessel, but the
sailors refusing to make another attempt, she found herself compelled to
resort to some other means of escape. Horses being luckily procured, the
Duchess mounted _en croupe_ behind one of the gentlemen of her suite,
and riding all night and part of the following day, the fugitives met
with a hospitable reception from a nobleman of Caux, in whose little
manor-house they found rest, refection, and concealment for the space of
a week.

The Duchess's tumble into the sea, though a disagreeable, turned out to
have been a lucky accident, for she now learnt that the master of the
vessel she had been so anxious to reach was in the interest of Mazarin,
and had she gone on board she would have been arrested. At length Madame
de Longueville found herself once more in Havre, and having won over the
captain of an English ship to whom she introduced herself--like Madame
de Chevreuse--in male attire, as a nobleman who had just been engaged in
a duel, and was obliged to leave France, she succeeded in obtaining a
passage to Rotterdam.