e work, as will presently be mentioned, became
entangled in a strange fashion with that of La Rochefoucauld; of the
great Turenne, a worthy follower of Montluc and Rohan in the art of
military writing, little more than mention can be made. There are some
military memoirs of interest, which go under the name of the Duke of
York (James II).

[Sidenote: Cardinal de Retz.]

The works and personages of some other writers demand a fuller notice.
Paul de Gondi[256], Cardinal de Retz, who occupies with Saint Simon, and
perhaps La Rochefoucauld, the first place among French memoir-writers of
the seventeenth century, was born in 1614, and died in 1679. He was a
younger son of an ancient and noble house, uniting French and Italian
honours, and was early destined for the church, for which probably no
churchman ever had less vocation. He intrigued in society and politics,
was a practised duellist, and though he was not more than seven-or
eight-and-twenty at Richelieu's death, had already caballed against him.
His appointment by Louis XIII., almost on his deathbed, to the
coadjutorship (involving the reversion) of the archbishopric of Paris,
which was then held by his uncle, a very old man of no personal capacity
or influence, put into his hands a formidable political weapon, and he
was not long in making use of it. He was more than any other man the
instigator of the Fronde, that singular alliance of the privileged
bourgeoisie of the great towns with the still more privileged nobility
against the royal authority as exercised through ministers. The history
of this confused and turbulent period is in great part the biography of
Retz. It is not easy to see that he had any definite political views
except the jealousy of Mazarin, which he shared with almost all his
order, an inveterate habit of insubordination, and a still more
inveterate habit of conspiracy. The Fronde was and could have been but a
failure, and Retz was a failure with it. He was for some time in exile,
but at last reconciled himself to the inevitable, and even enjoyed some
public employments under Louis XIV. His principal occupation, however,
was the payment of his enormous debts, which he effected with an honesty
not common at the time among his class by rigorously reducing his
expenditure, selling and mortgaging his numerous benefices, and, as
Madame de Sevigne put it, 'living for his creditors.' He is said thus to
have paid off four millions of francs, a vast sum fo