Morose and bigoted, self-seeking and avaricious, the third Prince de Condé is far from an attractive personality. Nevertheless, his death was a sensible loss both to his family and to France. Selfish and turbulent though his conduct had been during the regency of Marie de’ Medici, when once he had decided that his own interests would be better served by loyalty than by opposition to the Crown, he certainly spared no effort to deserve the important offices and immense pensions which were the reward of his fidelity; and the steady support he gave to Anne of Austria and Mazarin since the beginning of the new reign had been of the highest value to the Government. “As sparing of the King’s money as his own,” writes the Duc d’Aumale, “his ideas on financial matters were sound; he desired that the public debts should be regularly discharged, and opposed extravagance and the constant augmentation of expenses, as well as increased taxation. He inspired confidence in serious men of affairs, who never wished to conclude a treaty when he did not assist at the Council. The quack financiers, the d’Émeris and the rest, feared him and rejoiced at his death. They played a fine game after he was gone.”[197] [Illustration: NINON DE L’ENCLOS FROM A MINIATURE IN THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM] His authority over his family was absolute. His children, if they did not love him, both feared and respected him, and to the last Enghien, so impatient of all control, showed towards his father the greatest deference. Had Henri de Bourbon lived a few years longer, his sound common-sense would certainly have saved them from the disasters they brought upon themselves and France; and the Fronde might have been, after all, merely “a blaze of straw.” Charlotte de Montmorency had the enjoyment for her life of the whole of her deceased husband’s property, subject only to an annual charge of 80,000 livres in favour of her elder son, and 10,000 in favour of the younger. This arrangement was no doubt a just one, seeing that the large fortune which his wife brought him had been the basis of Henri de Bourbon’s great wealth. But it, nevertheless, weighed very hardly on his successor, who had received comparatively little with Mlle. de Brézé, and, being as liberal as his father was the reverse, soon found himself seriously embarrassed to maintain his position as first Prince of the Blood, notwithstanding the revenues he derived from his offices and governments. * * * * *