MADAME DE LONGUEVILLE’S ADVENTURES IN NORMANDY. THE WOMEN’S WAR.

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 themselves, carry on the civil war, govern, intrigue, fight. A great experience for human nature, a fine historical opportunity for observing that gallant transfer of all power from the one sex to the other—the men lagging behind, led, directed, in the second or third ranks. But those women of rank, young, beautiful, brilliant, and for the most part gallant, were doubtless more formidable to the minister at this juncture than the men. The two lovely duchesses, De Longueville and De Bouillon, having shown during the preceding year of what they were capable; the Queen therefore gave orders for their arrest. The wary lover of the fascinating politician who had lately begun to scatter her blandishments equally upon all—La Rochefoucauld—having been apprised by the captain of his quarter that some blow was meditated by Mazarin, had sent twice to warn the Princes through the Marquis de la Moussaye, but who, as it appears, failed to acquit himself of that important mission. But if La Rochefoucauld’s warning failed to reach the ears of the Princes, he was more fortunate in effecting the escape of Madame de Longueville. Whilst they were seeking to arrest him as well as La Moussaye, the Queen despatched a note to the Duchess by the Secretary of State, La VrilliÈre, begging her to come to the Palais Royal. Instead of going thither she went direct to the HÔtel of the Princess Palatine—like herself beautiful, gallant, and intriguing, but endowed with a superior intellect. This lady speedily became the head and mainspring of the princes’ party—or of the second Fronde, and the Coadjutor, who directed the Old Fronde, was fain to recognise in her a worthy rival, and his equal in political sagacity. Fearing to be discovered if she remained under the roof of the princess, a carriage was procured, and the duchess driven in it by La Rochefoucauld himself to an obscure house in the Faubourg St. Germain, where they remained until nightfall in a cellar. Thence the Duchess and her lover set out for Normandy on horseback under the escort of forty determined men provided by the Princess Palatine. Brave and resolute as her brother, the sister of CondÉ rode northwards through that entire winter’s night and the following day, and sought no shelter until worn out with excessive fatigue she reached Rouen. But the commandant, the Marquis de Beuvron, although an old friend of the duke, declared he could not serve her, and refused to raise the banner of revolt in that stronghold of her husband’s government. Her attempt at Rouen thus receiving a complete check, she had some hope of being received into the citadel of Havre, but the Duchess de Richelieu, though her friend, was not so much mistress there as the Duchess d’Aiguillon, who, on the contrary, was full of resentment against her. Discouraged and repulsed on all hands, the fugitive Duchess next made her way to Dieppe, where she thought herself in sufficient safety to part with La Rochefoucauld, who left her to assist the Duke de Bouillon to raise troops in Angoumois. In the fortress of Dieppe, commanded by a faithful officer of her husband, Madame de Longueville found the rest she so much needed. In a brief space, with spirits recruited, she resolved to make a stand to the uttermost against the Queen and Mazarin, and having replaced the royal standard by that of CondÉ set about putting the citadel in a state of defence to resist a siege. The Queen, however, having resolved not to give the Duchess time to raise her husband’s government of Normandy into revolt, on the 1st of February quitted Paris for Rouen. The band of gentlemen who had gathered round the beautiful Frondeuse thereupon melted away, and Mademoiselle de Longueville, her step-daughter, afterwards Duchess de Nemours, quitted her to take refuge in a convent. As Montigny, the commandant at Dieppe, declared that it was impossible to hold the fortress, the Duchess left the place by a secret portal, followed by her women and some few gentlemen. She held her way for two leagues on foot along the coast to the little port of Tourville, in order to reach a small vessel which she had prudently hired in case of need. On reaching the point of embarkation the sea was breaking so furiously in surf on shore, the tide being so strong and the wind so high, that Madame de Longueville’s followers entreated her not to attempt to reach the vessel. But the Duchess, dreading less the angry waves than the chance of falling into the Regent’s power, persisted in going to sea. As the state of the tide and weather rendered it impossible for a boat to get near the shore, a sailor took her in his arms to carry her on board, but had not waded above twenty paces when a huge roller carried him off his feet, and he fell with his fair burden. For an instant the poor lady believed that she was lost, as in falling the sailor lost his hold of her and she sank into deep water. On being rescued, however, she expressed her resolve to reach the vessel, but the sailors refusing to make another attempt, she found herself compelled to resort to some other means of escape. Horses being luckily procured, the Duchess mounted en croupe behind one of the gentlemen of her suite, and riding all night and part of the following day, the fugitives met with a hospitable reception from a nobleman of Caux, in whose little manor-house they found rest, refection, and concealment for the space of a week.

The Duchess’s tumble into the sea, though a disagreeable, turned out to have been a lucky accident, for she now learnt that the master of the vessel she had been so anxious to reach was in the interest of Mazarin, and had she gone on board she would have been arrested. At length Madame de Longueville found herself once more in Havre, and having won over the captain of an English ship to whom she introduced herself—like Madame de Chevreuse—in male attire, as a nobleman who had just been engaged in a duel, and was obliged to leave France, she succeeded in obtaining a passage to Rotterdam. Thence, passing through Flanders, she reached the stronghold of Stenay,[55] where the Viscomte de Turenne, already compromised with the Court for having openly espoused the CondÉ party, had shortly before the Duchess’s arrival also taken refuge.

It was then that the Duchess, who, under the sway of La Rochefoucauld, had been one of the instruments of the first Fronde war, became the motive power of the second and far more serious one—well named by the witty Parisians “the women’s war.” From the citadel of Stenay, of which she took the command, she directed the wills and actions of the men of her party, into which she thoroughly won over Turenne. Her importunities, aided by her charms, prevailed so powerfully over his valiant though fallible heart, that the illustrious captain, after having struggled painfully for some time with his conscience, allied himself with the Spaniards by a treaty which placed him, as well as the sister of the great CondÉ, in the pay of the enemies of his king and country. The treaty effectively stipulated “that there should be a junction of the two armies, and that the war should be carried on by the assistance of the King of Spain until a peace should be concluded between the two kings and the princes liberated. That the King of Spain should engage to pay over to Madame de Longueville and to Monsieur de Turenne two hundred thousand crowns wherewith to raise and equip troops; that he should furnish them with forty thousand crowns per month for the payment of such troops, and sixty thousand crowns per annum in three payments for the table and equipages of Madame de Longueville and Monsieur de Turenne.” This treaty duly signed, Madame de Longueville issued, in the form of a letter to his Majesty the King of France, a manifesto very skilfully drawn up and filled with artful complaints and accusations against Mazarin, with the design of soliciting through the one and the other an apology for her own conduct, as though it were possible to justify herself for having entered into a compact with the enemies of her country.

It was during her sojourn at Stenay that she lost her mother (2nd December, 1650). “My dear friend,” said the Princess de CondÉ to Madame de Brienne, who was with her during her last moments, “tell that ‘pauvre miserable’ who is now at Stenay the condition in which you have seen me, that she may learn how to die.”

During the whole of this period, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld gave constant proof of a rare fidelity. M. Cousin speaks very precisely on this head. “Whilst Madame de Longueville was pledging her diamonds in Holland for the defence of Stenay, La Rochefoucauld expended his fortune in Guienne. It was the most grievous and, at the same time, the most touching moment of their lives and their adventures. They were far away from each other, but they still fondly loved; they served with equal ardour the same cause, they fought and suffered equally and at the same time.” Abundant proofs might be instanced of this love and devotion on their part. La Rochefoucauld wrote unceasingly to Stenay, and gave an account of everything he did. “The sole aim, then, of all the Duke’s exertions,” says Lenet, “was to please that beautiful princess, and he took endless care and pleasure to acquaint her with all he did for her, and to deliver the princess her sister-in-law (CondÉ’s wife), by despatching couriers to her on the subject.” He informs us moreover that, “in every juncture, he forwarded expresses to render account to the Duchess of all that respect for her made him undertake. At this moment, in fact, having just succeeded to his patrimonial estates through the death of his father, La Rochefoucauld recognised no obstacle in his path, but bravely went forward in the cause he had espoused and generously sacrificed his property in Angoumois and Saintonge. His ancestral chÂteau of Verteuil was even razed to the ground by Mazarin’s orders, and when the tidings of it reached him, he received them with such great firmness,” says Lenet, “that he seemed as though he were delighted, through a feeling that it would inspire confidence in the minds of the Bordelais. It was further said that what gave him the liveliest pleasure was to let the Duchess de Longueville see that he hazarded everything in her service.” It cannot be denied, in fine, that the Duke at that time yielded himself up to a sentiment as deep as it was sincere, and which contradicts very happily and without any possible doubt the assertion so often hazarded that he had never loved the woman whom he had seduced and dragged into the vortex of politics. Madame de Longueville and he adored each other at this period, says M. Cousin, and it is pleasant to be able to cite the opinion of that eminent historian upon such fact; although separated by the entire length of France, they suffered and struggled each for the other: they had the same aim, the same faith, the same hope. They wrote incessantly to communicate their thoughts and projects, and thus sought to diminish in imagination the enormous distance which is between Stenay and Bordeaux.