across their gossiping pages are alive. The century passes in
review before us as we read. The men and women who made its
literature so brilliant and its salons so famous, become vivid
realities. Prominent among the fair faces that look out upon us
at every turn, from court and salon, is that of the Duchesse de
Longueville, sister of the Grand Conde, and heroine of the
Fronde. Her lovely blue eyes, with their dreamy languor and
"luminous awakenings," turn the heads alike of men and women, of
poet and critic, of statesman and priest. We trace her brief
career through her pure and ardent youth, her loveless marriage,
her fatal passion for La Rochefoucauld, the final shattering of
all her illusions; and when at last, tired of the world, she bows
her beautiful head in penitent prayer, we too love and forgive
her, as others have done. Were not twenty-five years of
suffering and penance an ample expiation? She was one of the
three women of whom Cardinal Mazarin said that they were "capable
of governing and overturning three kingdoms." The others were
the intriguing Duchesse de Chevreuse, who dazzled the age by her
beauty and her daring escapades, and the fascinating Anne de
Gonzague, better known as the Princesse Palatine, of whose
winning manners, conversational charm, penetrating intellect, and
loyal character Bossuet spoke so eloquently at her death. We
catch pleasant glimpses of Mme. Deshoulieres, beautiful and a
poet; of Mme. Cornuel, of whom it was said that "every sin she
confessed was an epigram"; of Mme. de Choisy, witty and piquante;
of Mme. de Doulanges, also a wit and femme d'esprit.

Linked with these by a thousand ties of sympathy and affection
were the worthy counterparts of Pascal and Arnauld, of Bossuet
and Fenelon, the devoted women who poured out their passionate