an. After that elevated passion,
so sorrowfully terminated,[1] and after the fugitive emotion with which
the lovely and virtuous Mademoiselle de Toussy could still inspire him,
Conde stifled his chevalaresque instincts and bade adieu to the _haute
galanterie_ of his youth and of the Hotel de Rambouillet. A few
insignificant and commonplace attachments, of which no record has
survived, alone excepted, Madame de Chatillon only is known to have
captivated his heart for the last time; and that _liaison_ exercised
upon Conde and his affairs, at the epoch at which we have arrived, an
influence sufficiently great for history to occupy itself therewith, if
it would not be content with retracing consequences and as it were the
outline of events which pass across the stage of the world without being
understood, without penetrating to the true causes which are to be
discovered in the characters and passions of mankind. And, of all
passions, there is none at once more energetic and wide-grasping than
love. It occupies an immense place in human life, and in the loftiest as
well as the lowliest conditions. In our own times, we have seen it make
and mar kings. In an earlier epoch, by detaining Antony too long in
Cleopatra's arms at Alexandria, the formidable tempest gathered above
his head which nearly overwhelmed him at Munda. It played a great part
in the war which Henry IV. was about to undertake, when a sudden death
arrested him. One can scarcely resist a smile on seeing historians for
the most part taking no account of it, as a thing too frivolous, and
consigning it altogether to private life, as though that which agitates
the soul so powerfully were not the principle of that which blazes forth
exteriorly! No, the empire of beauty knows no limitation, and in no
instance did it show itself more potent than over those great hearts of
which Alexander the Great, Caesar, Charlemagne, and Henry IV. of France
were the owners. We may well place Conde amongst such illustrious
company.

[1] Mademoiselle de Vigean took the veil on the prince being forced
to marry the niece of Cardinal Richelieu.

One graceful memento of Madame de Chatillon's power over Conde has
descended to our own day. At Chatillon-sur-Loing, in what remains of the
ancient chateau of the Colignys, which Isabelle de Montmorency derived
from her husband and left to her brother, in that salon of the noble
heir of the Luxembourgs, as precious for history as for art,