give you three guesses,—six,—a hundred. Madame de Coulanges says, 'It is not hard to guess; it is Madame de la Vallière.' Not at all, Madame! 'Mlle. de Retz?' Not a bit; you are a mere provincial. 'How absurd!' you say; 'it is Mlle. Colbert.' Not that, either. 'Then, of course, it is Mlle. de Créqui.' Not right yet. Must I tell you, then? Listen! he marries on Sunday, at the Louvre, by his Majesty's permission, Mademoiselle,—Mademoiselle de,—Mademoiselle (will you guess again?)—he marries Mademoiselle,—La Grande Mademoiselle,—Mademoiselle, daughter of the late Monsieur,—Mademoiselle, granddaughter of Henri Quatre,—Mademoiselle d'Eu,—Mademoiselle de Dombes,—Mademoiselle de Montpensier,—Mademoiselle d'Orléans,—Mademoiselle, the King's own cousin,—Mademoiselle, destined for the throne,—Mademoiselle, the only fit match in France for Monsieur [the King's brother];—there's a piece of information for you! If you shriek,—if you are beside yourself,—if you say it is a hoax, false, mere gossip, stuff, and nonsense,—if, finally, you say hard things about us, we do not complain; we took the news in the same way. Adieu; the letters by this post will show you whether we have told the truth."
Poor Mademoiselle! Madame de Sévigné was right in one thing,—if it were not done promptly, it might prove impracticable. Like Ralph Roister Doister, she should ha' been married o' Sunday. Duly the contract was signed, by which Lauzun took the name of M. de Montpensier and the largest fortune in the kingdom, surrendered without reservation, all, all to him; but Mazarin had bribed the notary to four hours' delay, and during that time the King was brought to change his mind, to revoke his consent, and to contradict the letters he had written to foreign courts, formally announcing the nuptials of the first princess of the blood. In reading the Memoirs of Mademoiselle, one forgets all the absurdity of all her long amatory angling for the handsome young guardsman, in pity for her deep despair. When she went to remonstrate with the King, the two royal cousins fell on their knees, embraced, "and thus we remained for near three quarters of an hour, not a word being spoken during the whole time, but both drowned in tears." Reviving, she told the King, with her usual frankness, that he was "like apes who caress children and suffocate them"; and this high-minded monarch soon proceeded to justify her remark by ordering her lover to the Castle of Pignerol, to prevent a private marriage,—which had probably taken place already. Ten years passed, before the labors and wealth of this constant and untiring wife could obtain her husband's release; and when he was discharged at last, he came out a changed, soured, selfish, ungrateful man. "Just Heaven," she had exclaimed in her youth, "would not bestow such a woman as myself upon a man who was unworthy of her." But perhaps Heaven was juster than she thought. They soon parted again forever, and he went to England, there to atone for these inglorious earlier days by one deed of heroic loyalty which it is not ours to tell.
And then unrolled the gorgeous tapestry of the maturer reign of the Grand Monarque,—that sovereign whom his priests in their liturgy styled "the chief work of the Divine hands," and of whom Mazarin said, more honestly, that there was material enough in him for four kings and one honest man. The "Moi-même" of his boyish resolution became the "L'état, c'est moi" of his maturer egotism; Spain yielded to France the mastery of the land, as she had already yielded to Holland and England the sea; Turenne fell at Sassbach, Condé sheathed his sword at Chantilly; Bossuet and Bourdaloue, preaching the funeral sermons of these heroes, praised their glories, and forgot, as preachers will, their sins; Vatel committed suicide because his Majesty had not fish enough for breakfast; the Princess Palatine died in a convent, and the Princess Condé in a prison; the fair Sévigné chose the better part, and the fairer Montespan the
