Duc de Lauzun 244 By permission of Messrs. Hachette & Co. MADAME DE SEVIGNE 282 From the painting by Pietro Mignard in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. (Photograph by Alinari.) VIEW OF THE PALACE AND GARDENS OF THE TUILERIES 330 From an engraving by Israel Silvestre, 1673. VIEW OF THE RESIDENCE OF COLBERT, SHOWING ALSO HIS SEAL 332 From an engraving by Israel Silvestre, 1675. VIEW OF THE CHATEAU OF VERSAILLES, SHOWING THE FOUNTAIN OF THE DRAGON 334 From an engraving by Israel Silvestre, 1676. DUCHESSE DE LA VALLIERE AND HER CHILDREN 336 From the painting by P. Mignard in the possession of the Marquise d'Oilliamson. LOUISE DE LA VALLIERE, IN THE GARB OF THE ORDER OF THE CARMELITES 338 After the painting by D. Plaats. MADAME DE MAINTENON 340 After the painting by P. Mignard in 1694. LOUIS XIV. AND LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE CHAPTER I Exile--Provincial Life--Conversation at Saint-Fargeau--Sentiment towards Nature in the Seventeenth Century--Differences between Mademoiselle and her Father--Mademoiselle Returns to Court. The Fronde was an abortive revolution. It was condemned in advance, the leaders having never clearly known what ends they were seeking. The consequences of its failure proved to be of profound importance to France. The civil disorders existing between 1648 and 1652 were the last efforts of the French against the establishing of absolute monarchy, to the strengthening of which the entire regency of Anne of Austria had tended. The end of these disorders signified that the nation, wearied and discouraged, had accepted the new regime. The result was a great transformation, political and moral, so great that the Fronde may be considered as clearly marking a separation between two periods of French history--a deep abyss as it were between the times which precede and those which follow. The leaders of the Fronde had been dispersed by the return of the King to his capital on October 21, 1652. When the exiles returned, some sooner, some later, the last after the Peace of the Pyrenees (November 7, 1659), so great a change had taken place in ideas and customs that more than one exile felt himself in a strange land. It was necessary to adjust oneself to the new atmosphere. It was very much the same situation--though the Frondeurs were under much lighter accusations--as that experienced by the _emigres_ returning under the Consulate. The Princess, the events of whose heroic years have been related, offers an excellent example of this condition.