s unquestionably a strong vein of
tenderness running through the stoical character of the
Duke, and if we were more intimately acquainted with his
private life we should probably see many traces of it. Such
traces exist as it is. We have Mme de Sevigne's account of
his reception of the news of the Passage of the Rhine. It
was announced to him, on the 17th of June, 1672, at the
house of Mme de La Fayette, in the presence of Mme de
Sevigne, that in that terrible disaster his eldest son had
been dangerously wounded and his fourth son, the Chevalier,
killed. The tears seemed to start out of the depth of his
heart, and they brimmed his eyes, although his self-command
prevented an outbreak of grief. But there was a further
complication. The young Duke of Longueville was also killed
at the Rhine, and he, as a select circle of intimate friends
were perfectly aware, was really the love-child of La
Rochefoucauld. Mme de Sevigne, having given a superficial
account of the incident, characteristically goes on to say,
"Alas! I am telling a lie; between ourselves, my dear, he
does not feel the loss of the Chevalier so much; it is that
of the young man whom all the world regrets which leaves him
so inconsolable." And again she says: "I saw the secrets of
his heart revealed under this cruel blow; and no one that I
have ever seen surpasses him in courage, in honour, in
tenderness, in balance of mind." This is a tribute not to be
overlooked.]

To understand the wholesome influence which La Rochefoucauld has
exercised on French character, we must keep constantly in sight his
hatred of falsehood. If he is angry and sardonic, it is because he
sees, or thinks he sees, falsehood everywhere masquerading as virtue.
His foremost duty was to pluck the mask from the false virtues which
strutted everywhere through the society and literature of France.
Voltaire recognized nothing else in La Rochefoucauld but this sardonic
misanthropy, this determination to prove that man is guided solely by
self-interest. This Voltaire thought was the _seule verite_ contained
in the "Maximes," and in a measure he was right. The moralist saw
_amour-propre_ as an Apollyon straddling right across the pathway of
mankind; he saw lies flourish everywhere, and proclaim themselves to
be the truth. The conscience of mankind was seduced or browbeaten b