It will be recollected that the role of universal arbitrator was played by the "young Court," the youthful King at its head, at the time in which there was daily contact with Paris, and when the Court was always in the advance in ideas as in fashions. The residence at Versailles ended the possibility of these times ever returning; there was no longer any bond between the King of France and the merchant of the rue St. Denis. In consequence, Paris employed itself in the eighteenth century in the evolution of minds. The Court had decided upon the success of the plays of Moliere, the Parisian parquet criticised those of Beaumarchais. If it be considered that the interior politics of Louis XIV. were constantly dominated by a horror of the Fronde, it will be recognised that this abortive revolution brought in its train consequences almost as grave as if it had been successful. This is the reason it has seemed permissible to make the history of the ideas and sentiments existing during the wars of the Fronde and the succeeding forty years circle around the incidents in the life of the Grande Mademoiselle. She was a truly representative figure of this generation, and on this account will always merit the attention of historians, and by a double claim, through the interest in her proud conception of life, and through the importance of the evil for which she was partly responsible and by the results of which she was herself overwhelmed. No one possessed in a higher degree than this Princess the great qualities belonging to her epoch, and no one preserved them so intact without thought of the danger after the retaining of such opinions had become a cause of disgrace. Neither Retz nor the great Conde showed signs in their old age of their characteristics displayed under the Fronde; both had become calmed. The Grande Mademoiselle remained always the Grande Mademoiselle, and this steadfastness, while sometimes a difficulty, was more often her real title to glory. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 264: M. du Honsett, Ancient Intendant of Finance. He had just purchased the office of Chancellor of Monsieur.] [Footnote 265: Letter dated April 1, 1671.] [Footnote 266: Letter dated January 13, 1672.] [Footnote 267: _Memoires de La Fare._ _Cf._ the _Memoires de Choisy, Segraisiana_, etc.] [Footnote 268: Louvois had visited Pignerol the preceding year.] [Footnote 269: The authorities quoted in this and the following chapter, upon the captivity of Lauzun, are in part unpublished and drawn from the Archives of the Minister of War, in part borrowed from the _Archives de la Bastille_, by M. Ravaisson. See also a collection of historic documents of 1829: _Histoire de la Detention des Philosophes_, by J. Delort.] [Footnote 270: Mme. de Montespan and Mlle. de La Valliere were designated briefly "_les Dames_."] [Footnote 271: This letter has been lost or destroyed.] [Footnote 272: Louvois to Saint-Mars, March 2, 1676.]