As far, however, as witty license of speech went, Catherine’s court ladies not unfrequently excelled the court fools, male or female. They did not, indeed, let their lightly-hung tongues ring out at Majesty itself; but they observed no such restraint with anybody beneath the rank, even though the individual might be above the King himself in power. I may instance, as a case in point, the mighty Cardinal of Lorraine, who, despite all his puissance, was often the butt of the lively ladies of the Court of Catherine de Medicis and her royal sons. Brantôme says of this gay and intellectual priest, that, when things went well with him, his arrogance was insufferable; but that no one could be more courteous, or more humble, when his projects met with obstruction. One of the Queen’s maids-of-honour, Mdlle. de la Guyonnière, afterwards Madame de Ligneroles, often carried on a fool’s war with the redoubted Cardinal. Whenever the latter appeared to be meek and polite with this lady,--she, who, according to Brantôme’s pleasant compendium, “étoist très habile fille, belle, honneste, et qui disoit bien le mot,” would, with audacious gaiety, exclaim, “Come, come, meek Sir, tell us now if you have not met with some check during the night past? Confess at once that you have been humbled, or we will have nothing to say to you; for, most assuredly, you have encountered some defeat. So, let us hear all about it, if you would have us gracious with you.” At a later period, we find another lady whose wit was wont to give mirth to courtly circles, if not to the French Court itself. I allude to the sister of that younger De Thou who was executed, by Richelieu, in 1642, for not revealing the conspiracy headed by Cinq-Mars, who had trusted the secret of it with his friend. In after-years, this lady attended the funeral service of the Cardinal, or a service held for the repose of his soul. And there she set the noble persons present into scarcely suppressed laughter, by exclaiming, as she gazed at the coffin where Richelieu lay, or was supposed to lie,--in the words of Martha to Christ, after the death of Lazarus,--“Domine, si fuisses hîc, frater meus non esset mortuus.” (“Lord, if thou hadst been _here_, my brother had not died.”) It was very apt, though a little profane.