Political Women, Vol. 1

THE DUCHESSES DE LONGUEVILLE AND DE CHEVREUSE AND THE PRINCESS PALATINE IN THE LAST FRONDE.--RESULTS OF THE RUPTURE OF THE MARRIAGE PROJECTED BETWEEN THE PRINCE DE CONTI AND MAD...

CONDE arrived in Paris on the 11th of April, and found everything in the utmost confusion. It would be impossible to follow all the petty intrigues, or even make allusion to all...

Richelieu had died admired and abhorred. The people, glad to be delivered from so heavy a yoke, obeyed with joy the incipient rule of the Queen-Regent. The courtiers were at fir...

FROM the long-sustained, vigorous, and very eminent part played by Marie de Rohan in opposing the repressive system of the two great Cardinal Ministers, her name belongs equally...

ONE need not be greatly astonished at such an enterprise on the part of two women of high rank and a grandson of Henry the Great. At that stirring epoch of French history--the i...

THE arrest of the Princes had singularly complicated events on the political stage. It had displaced all interests, and, instead of re-uniting parties and consolidating them, it...

CONDE passed several months in Guienne, occupied with strengthening and extending the insurrection at the head of which he had placed himself, and in repulsing as far as possibl...

IN selecting the careers of certain celebrated women who have flung themselves with ardour into the vortex of politics, the author's choice has not been so much an arbitrary one...

WE have glanced rapidly over the fairest period of Madame de Longueville's youth, over those years wherein the splendour of her success in the ranks of fashion was not obtained...

WE do not propose to enter into the labyrinth of intrigues which preceded the outbreak of the Fronde, but confine ourselves to an endeavour to trace the motives which led Madame...

ON declaring itself of the party of Mazarin, the house of Conde had drawn down the hatred of the _Importants_, though their hostility scarcely fell upon Madame de Longueville. H...

LET us now inquire how the last attempt against Mazarin's life--that nocturnal ambuscade so well planned and so deliberately set about on the 1st of September, 1643--chanced to...

TO generous and feeling hearts, Conde's misfortune presented all the characteristics of a real romance. The majority of the women therefore who meddled with politics were, throu...

HIS determination to unsheath the sword once taken, Conde put his plans into execution without throwing one glance behind him. Having collected together in Berri his family and...

IN the first scenes of the shifting drama, the Court had supported Conde in compassing the destruction of the Frondeurs; and Mazarin, with keen policy, instigated the Prince to...

THAT Madame de Longueville witnessed the duel on the Place Royale seems to rest on no reliable authority. Such a trait is so utterly at variance with her character that its attr...

AS has been said, the 2nd of September, 1643, had been truly a memorable day in the career of Mazarin, and, indeed, in the annals of France; for it witnessed the confirming of t...

THE brilliant heroine of the Fronde, of whose grace, beauty, and influence Anne of Austria was so jealous--not to speak of the mortal rivalry of the gay Duchesses de Montbazon a...

THE heroes having thus suddenly disappeared from the scene, the political stage was left clear for the performance of the heroines. We are now about to see the women, almost by...

THIS first raising of bucklers by the Frondeurs was not of long duration. At the conclusion of a peace between Mazarin and the Parliament, a perfect understanding prevailed amon...

AT the commencement of 1651 all France clamoured for Conde's liberation. During the autumn Mazarin had led the Queen and the young King against Bordeaux, then held by the Prince...

WHEN in the summer of 1644, the Queen of England, the fugitive consort of Charles I., sought an asylum in France from the fury of the English parliamentarians, and went to drink...

AFTER ten years' absence from the scene of her former triumphs, social and political, did the brilliant Duchess then once more find herself safe and free in France. The _Gazette...

ANNE OF AUSTRIA now seriously prepared to make head against Conde, and with that intent she rallied round her all the forces of the Fronde united with those of the royal army. I...

IT is necessary, at this juncture, to have a just idea of the general position of political affairs in France, as well as of the attitude of the faction known as the _Importants...

A YOUNG Princess of the Blood so lovely, fascinating, and witty as Anne de Bourbon, was surely destined, it might be thought, to contract an early and altogether suitable matrim...

IV.--The Duchesses de Longueville and de Chevreuse and the Princess Palatine in the last Fronde--Results of the rupture of the marriage projected between the Prince de Conti and...