Let no one
imagine that he is acquainted with Mdme. de Chevreuse from having merely
studied the foregoing portrait traced by De Retz, for that sketch is an
exaggeration and over-charged like all those from the same pen, and was
destined to amuse the malignant curiosity of Mdme. de Caumartin--for
without being altogether false, it is of a severity pushed to the verge
of injustice. Was it becoming, one might ask, of the restless and
licentious Coadjutor to constitute himself the remorseless censor of a
woman whose errors he shared? Did he not deceive himself as much and for
a far longer period than she? Did he show more address in political
strategy or courage in the dangerous strife, more intrepidity and
constancy in defeat? But Mdme. de Chevreuse has not written memoirs in
that free-and-easy and piquant style the constant aim of which is
self-elevation, obtained at the expense of everybody else. There are two
judges of her character the testimony of whose acts must be held to be
above suspicion--Richelieu and Mazarin. Richelieu did all in his power
to win her over, and not being able to succeed, he treated her as an
enemy worthy of himself.

[3] Mdme. de Motteville.

[4] Memoires, Petitot's Collection, 2nd series, vol. li. p. 339.

To revert briefly to her long-continued struggle with Richelieu, it must
not be forgotten that for twenty years she had been the personal friend
and favourite of Anne of Austria, and for ten years she had suffered
persecution and privation on that account. Exiled, proscribed, and
threatened with imprisonment, she had narrowly escaped Richelieu's grasp
by disguising herself in male attire, and in that garb traversing France
and Spain on horseback, had succeeded in eluding his pursuit, and after
many adventures in safely reaching Madrid. Philip IV. not only heaped
every kind of honour upon his sister's courageous favourite, but even,
it is said, swelled the number of her conquests. Whilst in the Spanish
capital she had allied herself politically with the Minister Olivarez,
and obtained great ascendancy over the Cabinet of Madrid. The war
between France and Spain necessarily rendering her position in the
latter country delicate and embarrassing, she had, early in 1638, sought
refuge in England. Charles I. and Henrietta Maria gave her the warmest
possible reception at St. James's; and the latter, on seeing again the
distinguished countrywoman who had some years back conducted her as a