e Laigues and other intimate friends of Mademoiselle de
Chevreuse; it was even feared lest he should marry her without the
necessary dispensations and without the participation of the head of his
family. Conde, therefore, decided to act at once, and the reputation of
the fair lady afforded him a means of attack which he employed with
success upon his brother. He seems to have had no great difficulty in
attaining his object. The Prince de Conti soon received proof that she
was not by any means so immaculate as he had believed: her scarcely
doubtful connection with the Coadjutor was placed in its true light,
and, convinced that the object of his passion was unworthy the love of a
man of honour, he began to look upon her with horror. He even blamed
Madame de Longueville and the Duke de la Rochefoucauld for not having
warned him sooner of what was said of her in society. From that moment
means of breaking off the affair without acrimony were sought; but
the interests involved were too great, and the circumstances too piquant
not to renew and augment still more the old hatred of Madame de
Chevreuse and the Frondeurs against the Prince de Conde, and against
those whom they suspected of taking part in that which had just been
done.[2]

[2] La Rochefoucauld, p. 69. Retz, tom, ii., p. 223.

This testimony would justify Madame de Longueville and La Rochefoucauld
himself for having urged Conde upon that disloyal and impolitic rupture,
if one could believe it to be entirely sincere; but it is very difficult
to admit that Madame de Longueville and her all-powerful adviser could
have remained strangers to a determination so important, and there are
many doubts and obscurities resting upon this delicate point. De Retz,
whose introspect was so penetrating, and who does not pride himself on
any great reserve in his judgments, knew not what opinion to
form--Conde, Madame de Longueville, and La Rochefoucauld having
afterwards assured him that they had had nothing to do with the rupture
of the marriage.

But whose soever was the hand that broke off the projected alliance of
the Condes with Madame de Chevreuse, it is beyond doubt that that had
lost Conde and saved Mazarin. All the errors which followed were derived
from that cardinal one. In it must be discerned the first link of that
chain of disastrous events which ended by dragging Conde into civil war.

The resentment of Madame de Chevreuse may well be imagined, when she
discove