A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Longueville, Duchess de
LONGUEVILLE, DUCHESS DE,
Sister of the great Condé, was the daughter of Henry, Prince de Condé, and of Marguerite de Montmorenci. She married Henry d'Orleans, Duke de Longueville, who, though brave, intelligent, and virtuous, preferred a quiet and retired life; and soon withdrew from the wars of the Fronde, in which his wife had induced him to take an active part, to his own estate. The duchess, whose character was very different, embraced with warm ardour the views of that party, whose heroine she soon, from her high birth, beauty, and intrepidity, became. Her influence and charms were of great to the Frondeurs, by inducing the celebrated Turenne and the Duke de la Rochefoucauld to join them. Turenne, however, soon returned to his allegiance to the king; but the duke remained faithful to the last, "à ses beaux yeux"
After the amicable termination of the civil war, the duchess was received into the favour of Louis the Thirteenth, and from that time devoted herself to literature, and united with her illustrious brothers, the great Condé, and the Prince de Condé, in encouraging rising genius. On the death of the Duke de Longueville, she left the court, and consecrated the remainder of her days to the most austere penitence. She had a house built at Port-Royal aux Champe where, although she renounced "the pomps and vanities of the world," she still retained her love for society, and the conversation of intelligent persons. The recluses at Port-Royal were all people who had acquired a high reputation while they lived in the world. Human glory followed them to their hermitage, all the more because they disdained it.
The Duchess de Longueville died April 16th., 1679, at the age of sixty-one. She left no children.