To take up sword or pen and fall foul of the government was almost always an easy thing to do in France; the difficulty lay in proposing peace after the war, to hit upon profitable reconciliations or lucrative treaties. Mademoiselle did her best; and at length, in that same year of 1657, she made her appearance in the royal camp near Sedan, having at her carriage-door the silly and complaisant Mazarin, who believed all she wished him to believe, and who presented the princess with a little Boulogne bitch, in token of good friendship; she made her excuses to the King for having been naughty, and promised to be wise in future. Louis behaved more graciously towards the fair rebel than did his mother, and said that everything should be buried in oblivion; but he did not forget the cannonade of the Bastille. After five years' seclusion, she again looked forward to resume her position at Court, to keep one of her own, to enthrone herself at the Luxembourg, and doubtless contract some sovereign alliance. Vain illusions! Conflicts of the heart were about to succeed to those political storms from whose effects she had just recovered. The most vainglorious of the daughters of France was destined to extinguish with the wet blanket of vile prose the brilliancy of a long and romantic career. History, justly severe upon the Fronde, ought not, we think, to treat too harshly the Frondeuse of the blood-royal. Upon one delicate point of her private life the biographer cannot, unfortunately, show the same indulgence. The supreme criterion for the appreciation of certain women, and the irresistible argument, is the man whom they have loved. Assuredly we may pardon many things recorded of the _Grande Mademoiselle_, even her shrewish relations with her step-mother, even her haughty contempt for her half-sisters, but we cannot pardon her M. de Lauzun. We are all well acquainted with that individual, with his cunning and supercilious cast of countenance, servile or arrogant, according to circumstances and interests, adroit in concealing a merciless egotism, a revolting brutality, under the guise of a theatrical liberality; brave so far as was necessary to be insolent with impunity, intelligent no further than to the extent at which selfishness blinds the judgment, and delighting in mischief when there was nothing to dread from it. To all this may be added an incisive tone of voice, and language keenly sarcastic or servilely obsequious, an insatiable and inordinate sensuality, innumerable conquests among the fair sex, and extraordinary adventures. At first sight, at a Court masquerade, in 1659, the bully made an impression upon the _precieuse_, and she noticed him for his exquisite elegance during the marriage fetes of Louis XIV. When she met him in the Queen's apartments, she remarked that he had more wit than anyone else, and found a particular pleasure in talking with him. The charm operated so effectually that the princess of