ty, without disguising truths known to all, without
exceeding either in blame or praise the limits imposed by good taste
upon the reverend orator when he pronounces a panegyric upon those who
not unfrequently have very little merited it.

[2] This unfortunate Prince had married, in 1613, Elizabeth,
daughter of James I. of England. The celebrated Prince Rupert and
Sophia, Electress of Hanover, were among the other children.

During those stormy years of the civil wars, through her diplomatic
talents, Anne de Gonzagua shone conspicuously in the front rank of
female politicians. One can readily imagine what must have been, not in
the first Fronde, all parliamentary as it was, but in the second,
entirely aristocratic, in the Fronde of the Princes, the influence of a
woman's mind at once so subtle and brilliant. It was then that Madame de
Chevreuse, Madame de Montbazon, Madame de Longueville, and Mademoiselle
de Montpensier, displayed upon the political stage the resources of
their finesse, their dissimulation, or their courage. The Palatine did
not fall below the level of those adventurous heroines. In the midst of
those intrigues, of that puerile ambition, of those turnings and
windings, perfidy, seduction, manoeuvring promises, of those
negotiations in which Mazarin infused all his Italian cunning, the Queen
her feminine impatience and her Spanish dissimulation, De Retz his
genius of artist-conspirator, Conde his pride of the prince and the
conqueror, Anne de Gonzagua handled political matters with a rare
suppleness, humouring offended self-love, impatient ambition, haughty
rivalries, acting as mediatrix with a wonderful amount of conciliatory
tact, the friend of divers chiefs of parties, and meriting the
confidence of all.

It would be tedious to relate here her various negotiations, to go over
her discourses, conversations, and numerous letters: it would involve a
history of the Fronde, and that is not our subject. It will suffice to
say that she obtained the esteem of all parties at a time when parties
not only hated but strangely defied each other, and that she manifested
a skill, a tact which Cardinal de Retz--a good judge of such
matters--does not hesitate to praise with enthusiasm. "I do not think,"
says he, "that Queen Elizabeth of England had more capacity for
governing a state. I have seen her in faction, I have seen her in the
cabinet, and I have found her in every respect equally sincere." This