inister. She therefore used her utmost tact with Mazarin, negotiating
at the same time with him, as well as with the Old and the New Fronde.
She turned to her own profit the influence that her connections at
Court, with the Coadjutor, and with the Princes gave her in all the
several factions. She was assisted in her intrigues by the Marquis de
Laignes, a man of courage but little intellect, who, from the time of
her exile at Brussels, had declared himself her lover in order to gain
importance in the faction of the Fronde, which he had embraced. As
little more of the attractions of her youth were left to Madame de
Chevreuse, save their pristine celebrity, she had not always to
congratulate herself upon the good humour and behaviour of De Laignes.
The latter had been until then wholly devoted to the Coadjutor; but De
Retz soon perceived that De Laignes entered into projects different from
his own. At length, to have some one who could be responsible to him
for Madame de Chevreuse, he endeavoured to substitute Hacqueville as a
go-between in the place of De Laignes. Hacqueville was the intimate
friend of De Retz and also of Madame de Sevigne; and seconded by Madame
de Chevreuse and Madame de Rhodes, De Retz might have succeeded in the
expulsion of Laignes, if Hacqueville would have consented to that
project. No man could be more obliging than Hacqueville; but,
notwithstanding the disposition he showed to be useful to his friends,
he shrank from such continual immolation of himself. Probably also he
was too honest a man to lend himself to such a procedure.

Madame de Sevigne,--in every way qualified to play a distinguished part
in the exciting game of politics,--was so entirely devoted to her
husband and children as to be a stranger to all these intrigues; but she
was more or less connected with the persons who seconded the Coadjutor's
projects, and consequently with the Duchess de Chevreuse. An article in
the "Muse Historique" of Loret shows how intimate was the connection of
Madame de Sevigne with that Duchess. In the month of July, 1850, on
returning from a promenade in the Cours, then the fashionable drive
among the highest society, the Marquis and Marchioness de Sevigne gave a
splendid supper to the Duchess de Chevreuse. The noisy manner in which
the Frondeurs expressed their delight made this nocturnal repast almost
assume the character of an orgie; and, for that reason, it became for
awhile the talk of the capital. The