In the present volume I have tried to raise a corner of this mask. The _Memoires_ of Louis XIV., completely edited for the first time according to any methodical plan in 1860, have greatly aided me in this task. They abound in confessions, sometimes aside, sometimes direct, of the matters that occupied the thoughts of the youthful author. The Grande Mademoiselle, capable of neither reserve nor dissimulation, has proved the next most valuable guide in the attempt to penetrate into the intimate life of Louis. As related by her, the perpetual difficulties with the Prince throw a vivid light upon the kind of incompatibility of temper which existed at the beginning of the reign between absolute power and the survivors of the Fronde. How the young King succeeded in directing his generation toward new ideas and sentiments and how the Grande Mademoiselle, too late carried away by the torrent, became in the end a victim to its force, will be seen in the course of the present volume, provided, that is, that I have not overestimated my powers in touching upon a subject very obscure, very delicate, with facts drawn from a period the most frequently referred to and yet in some respects the least comprehended of the entire history of France. A. B. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Exile--Provincial Life--Conversation at Saint-Fargeau--Sentiment towards Nature in the Seventeenth Century--Differences between Mademoiselle and her Father--Mademoiselle Returns to Court 1-57 CHAPTER II The Education of Louis XIV.--Manners--Poverty--Charity--Vincent de Paul, a Secret Society--Marriage of Louis XIV.--His Arrival at Power on the Death of Mazarin--He Re-educates Himself 58-119 CHAPTER III Mademoiselle at the Luxembourg--Her Salon--The "Anatomies" of the Heart--Projects of Marriage, and New Exile--Louis XIV. and the Libertines--Fragility of Fortune in Land--_Fetes Galantes_ 120-184 CHAPTER IV Increasing Importance of the Affairs of Love--The Corrupters of Morals--Birth of Dramatic Music and its Influence--Love in Racine--Louis XIV. and the Nobility--The King is Polygamous 185-236 CHAPTER V The Grande Mademoiselle in Love--Sketch of Lauzun and their Romance--The Court on its Travels--Death of Madame--Announcement of the Marriage of Mademoiselle--General Consternation--Louis XIV. Breaks the Affair 237-303 CHAPTER VI Was Mademoiselle secretly Married?--Imprisonment of Lauzun--Splendour and Decadence of France--_La Chambre Ardente_--Mademoiselle Purchases Lauzun's Freedom--Their Embroilment--Death of the Grande Mademoiselle--Death of Lauzun--Conclusion 304-377