cultivated; yet the foundations of his character were thrown in times of ignorance and turbulence." The family of La Rochefoucauld is one of the noblest in France: it ranks equal with that of the sovereign, and enjoyed almost monarchical power when residing on its own possessions; while its influence might give preponderance to the party it espoused, and even shake the throne. François, the eldest son of the duke then in possession, was born at his paternal castle of Rochefoucauld, in Angoumois, in 1613, two years subsequent to the assassination of Henry IV. He grew up, therefore, during the reign of Louis XIII., and first came to court during the height of cardinal de Richelieu's power. His education had been neglected. Madame de Maintenon said of him, in after times, that "his physiognomy was prepossessing, his demeanour dignified; that he had great talent, and little knowledge." We have no details of his early life at court. He was the friend of the duchess de Chevreuse, favourite of the queen, Anne of Austria; and, when this lady was banished, the family of la Rochefoucauld fell into disgrace, and retired to the shelter of their estates. But a few years before the nobles of France possessed greater power than the king himself. The short reign and wise administration of Henry IV. and Sully had infused a somewhat better spirit into the body politic of the kingdom than that which for forty years had torn the country with civil war; but the happy effects of that prosperous period were obliterated on the accession of Louis XIII. After a series of struggles, however, Richelieu became prime minister; and with unflinching courage, and resolute and merciless policy, he proceeded to crush the nobility, and to raise the monarchical power (invested, it may be said, in his own person,) into absolute rule. The nobles in those days did not plot to supplant each other in the favour of their royal master, nor to gain some place near the royal person; they aimed at supremacy over the king himself: reluctantly, and not without struggles that cost the lives and fortunes of many of the chief among them, did the nobles yield to the despotism of Richelieu. The mother of their sovereign was banished; his brother disgraced; his queen enslaved; the prisons filled with victims; the provinces with exiles; the blood of many flowed: the cardinal reigned secure, and the power of the contending nobles was reduced to feudal command in their own domains.