When the Christian pessimism of Racine had--in the words of Jules Lemaître--succeeded the stoical optimism of Corneille, all the conditions evolving their diverse lines of thought had changed. The nature of La Grande Mademoiselle was exemplified in the moral revolution which gave us _Phédre_ thirty-four years (the space of a generation) after the apparition of _Pauline_. In the first part of her life,--the part depicted in this volume,--Mademoiselle was as true a type of the heroines of Corneille as any of her contemporaries. Not one of the great ladies of her world had a more ungovernable thirst for grandeur; not one of them cherished more superb scorn for the baser passions, among which Mademoiselle classed the tender sentiment of love. But, like all the others, she was forced to renounce her ideals; and not in her callow youth, when such a thing would have been natural, but when she was growing old, was she carried away by the torrent of the new thought, whose echoes we have caught through Racine. The limited but intimately detailed and somewhat sentimental history of Mademoiselle is the history of France when Louis XIII. was old, and when young Louis--Louis XIV.--was a minor, living the happiest years of all his life. If I seem presumptuous, let my intention be my excuse for so long soliciting the attention of my reader in favour of La Grande Mademoiselle. ERRATA. Page 83, ninth line from top, _read_ de Lormes _for_ de Lorme. Page 272, fifth line from bottom, _dele_ hypnotic. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE I. Gaston d'Orléans--His Marriage--His Character--II. Birth of Mademoiselle--III. The Tuileries in 1627--The Retinue of a Princess--IV. Contemporary Opinions of Education--The Education of Boys--V. The Education of Girls--VI. Mademoiselle's Childhood--Divisions of the Royal Family 1-80 CHAPTER II I. Anne of Austria and Richelieu--Birth of Louis XIV.--II. _L'Astrée_ and its Influence--III. Transformation of the Public Manners--The Creation of the Salon--The Hôtel de Rambouillet and Men of Letters 81-153 CHAPTER III I. The Earliest Influences of the Theatre--II. Mademoiselle and the School of Corneille--III. Marriage Projects--IV. The Cinq-Mars Affair--Close of the Reign 154-236 CHAPTER IV I. The Regency--The Romance of Anne of Austria and Mazarin--Gaston's Second Wife--II. Mademoiselle's New Marriage Projects--III. Mademoiselle Would Be a Carmelite Nun--The Catholic Renaissance under Louis XIII. and the Regency--IV. Women Enter Politics--The Rivalry of the Two Junior Branches of the House of France--Continuation of the Royal Romance 237-327 CHAPTER V