s out of his pocket victoriously two portraits of his good lord,
ogles Mademoiselle as long as he could, and talks "goguette" to her for
a whole hour, is one of the most amusing farces anywhere to be met with.
Unluckily, the farce was not worth the candle in the opinion of certain
judges, and all the diversions of Saint-Fargeau did not prevent our
princess from regretting with all her heart that pompous Court of
Versailles in which the young Louis was giving such graceful ballets,
brilliant carousals, and piquant masquerades. The masquerades of 1657
carried the day over the political aims of 1652, and the fair exile
experienced a vivid longing to be once more received into favour at the
court of her royal cousin.

To take up sword or pen and fall foul of the government was almost
always an easy thing to do in France; the difficulty lay in proposing
peace after the war, to hit upon profitable reconciliations or lucrative
treaties. Mademoiselle did her best; and at length, in that same year of
1657, she made her appearance in the royal camp near Sedan, having at
her carriage-door the silly and complaisant Mazarin, who believed all
she wished him to believe, and who presented the princess with a little
Boulogne bitch, in token of good friendship; she made her excuses to the
King for having been naughty, and promised to be wise in future. Louis
behaved more graciously towards the fair rebel than did his mother, and
said that everything should be buried in oblivion; but he did not forget
the cannonade of the Bastille. After five years' seclusion, she again
looked forward to resume her position at Court, to keep one of her own,
to enthrone herself at the Luxembourg, and doubtless contract some
sovereign alliance. Vain illusions! Conflicts of the heart were about to
succeed to those political storms from whose effects she had just
recovered. The most vainglorious of the daughters of France was destined
to extinguish with the wet blanket of vile prose the brilliancy of a
long and romantic career.

History, justly severe upon the Fronde, ought not, we think, to treat
too harshly the Frondeuse of the blood-royal. Upon one delicate point of
her private life the biographer cannot, unfortunately, show the same
indulgence. The supreme criterion for the appreciation of certain women,
and the irresistible argument, is the man whom they have loved.
Assuredly we may pardon many things recorded of the _Grande
Mademoiselle_, even her shre