rhyming gazetteer thus expresses
himself on the subject:

On fait ici grand' mention
D'une belle collation
Qu'a la Duchesse de Chevreuse
Sevigne, de race frondeuse,
Donna depuis quatre ou cinq jours,
Quand on fut revenue du Cours.
On y vit briller aux chandelles
Des gorges passablement belles;
On y vit nombre de galants;
On y mangea des ortolans;
On chanta des chansons a boire;
On dit cent fois non--oui--non, voire.
La Fronde, dit-on, y claqua;
Un plat d'argent on escroqua;
On repandit quelque potage,
Et je n'en sais pas davantage.[1]

[1] Loret, Muse Historique, liv. i., p. 28, Letter 10.

It will be seen from these details, that already the manners and customs
of the great world reflected the licence of the civil wars, and that
they no longer resembled those of which the Hotel de Rambouillet still
presented a purer model. It may be possible also that there was some
exaggeration in Loret's description: he belonged to the Court party,
received a pension of two hundred crowns from Mazarin, and detested the
Fronde. His rhyming gazette was addressed to his protectress,
Mademoiselle de Longueville, so much the more opposed to the Fronde that
her stepmother was the heroine of that faction. Mademoiselle de
Longueville, whose harsh strictures upon the Conde family have been
cited, and who subsequently became the wife of the Duke de Nemours, is
often mentioned in the writings of her time, although she was never
mixed up in any political intrigue, nor took part in any event. Her
immense fortune, the clearness of her judgment, the elevation of her
sentiments, her grand airs, the severe dignity of her manners, and the
energy of her character, constituted her during the Regency and the
long reign of Louis XIV. a personage quite apart; who submitted herself
to no influence whatever, social or political, and who no more permitted
that absolute monarch to induce her to vary in her determinations, than
to change the fashion of her external habiliments.

CHAPTER III.

STATE OF PARTIES ON THE LIBERATION OF THE PRINCES--THE CARDS AGAIN
SHUFFLED, AND THE FACE OF THE SITUATION CHANGED.

AT the commencement of 1651 all France clamoured for Conde's liberation.
During the autumn Mazarin had led the Queen and the young King against
Bordeaux, then held by the Princess de Conde, carrying--as usual when
forced to use both means--a sword in one hand and a roll of parchment in
the other