During the peaceable period of the queen mother’s government, the Bastile seems to have had but few inmates, at least few whom history has deemed worthy of being recorded; and during the war of the Fronde, and even before, the castle of Vincennes was the prison which received the captives of the highest class, such as the duke of Beaufort, the prince of Condé, and cardinal de Retz. The first prisoner in the Bastile, of whom any notice occurs during the regency, was a Spanish agent, named George de Casselny. Philip IV. of Spain had recently lost his consort Elizabeth, and it appears that Casselny was commissioned to make overtures for the monarch’s marriage with that singular female the duchess of Montpensier, a woman who had more manly qualities than her vacillating father, the duke of Orleans. “There was a certain Spaniard, named George de Casselny (says the duchess, in her memoirs), who had been made prisoner in Catalonia, and was on his parole, he went to M. de Surgis, at Orleans, to request that he would procure for him an interview with Monsieur (the duke of Orleans), who put him off till he could see him at Paris. In consequence of this delay, the Spaniard’s intention got wind, and he was put into the Bastile, and the cardinal (Mazarin), told Monsieur that it was a man who wanted to divert him from the service of the king by this proposal of marriage; which Monsieur believed and still believes. Many persons, however, affirm, that it was not a pretext, and that this gentleman had orders to make solid and sincere propositions for the marriage of his king with me, which he had thought it proper to communicate to Monsieur, before he made them known to the court. Nevertheless, this poor creature was kept a prisoner for several years, and when he was set at liberty, he was sent out of the kingdom under a guard.”