Gaston and
the Parliament. The city of Bourges, which had shown so much enthusiasm
on Conde's arrival, opened its gates to the King and Chateauneuf. The
strong tower which defended the city, offering no resistance, was taken
without a blow being struck, and instantly demolished. The Princess de
Conde, her son, Madame de Longueville, Conti, and Nemours were forced to
take refuge hastily in the citadel of Montrond. On learning that Palluan
was advancing on that fortress, Conti and Nemours not wishing that the
precious pledges confided to their charge should incur any risk, left
the Marquis de Persan in Montrond, and with what remained to them of
their faithful troops escorted the Princess, her son, and Madame de
Longueville as far as Guienne, which they reached by the end of the
month of October.

It was during that rapid journey and their very brief sojourn in Berri
that certain obscure relations, it would appear, were formed between the
Duke de Nemours and Madame de Longueville, the report of which reaching
Bordeaux, exaggerated probably by interested and malevolent underlings,
wounded La Rochefoucauld and drove him to a violent rupture. A loyal and
confiding explanation might have sufficed to disperse a cloud, such as
at times will obscure the most settled friendships. La Rochefoucauld
brewed a storm out of it which, thanks to his Memoirs, has sent its
echoes down to posterity. His separation from Madame de Longueville was
marked by an eagerness which excites the suspicion that he had longed
for it.[1] He ought at least to have stopped there, but hurried away by
an implacable resentment, he accused her, or caused her to be accused by
Conde, of having wished to betray his interests to serve those of the
Duke de Nemours, giving her even to understand that "if a like
prepossession took her for another, she was capable of going to the same
extremities if that person desired it."[2] The accusation is yet more
absurd than odious. The Duke de Nemours was not the least in the world a
party chief; he was a friend of Conde, whose fidelity could only be
shaken through his love for Madame de Chatillon. To detach him from
Madame de Chatillon was therefore to give him wholly to Conde. Moreover,
Madame de Chatillon, like La Rochefoucauld, was for peace, she had won
over the Duke de Nemours to it, and both together urged Conde thereto.
To carry off the Duke de Nemours from such conspiracy and to seduce him
to the war party, was to ser