fame and
distinction, and that hour dawned amidst disasters of every sort, and
upon the captivity of her husband. At the moment of the arrest of the
Prince, whilst the Princess-dowager was conferring with her adherents
upon the best measures to be adopted for the deliverance of the Princes
and for the safety of her little grandson, the young Princess,
overcoming her timidity, interrupted Lenet, who was proposing a plan for
their flight, and another for a campaign, and, after the humblest tokens
of respect and deference for her mother-in-law, _entreated her not to
separate her from her son, protesting that she would follow him
everywhere joyfully, whatsoever might be the peril, and that she would
expose herself to any risk to aid her husband_.[8]

[8] Lenet.

From that moment, we trace, almost from day to day as it were, in the
_Memoires_ of Lenet proofs of the zeal and constancy of the Princess de
Conde. She escapes from Chantilly on foot, with her son and a small band
of faithful followers, traverses Paris, whence she reaches, in three
days and by devious roads, Montrond, the place pointed out by Lenet as
the safest retreat and the most advantageous to defend. Her letters to
the Queen and ministers, to the magistrates, to her relatives, are
stamped with nobility and firmness. Threatened in Montrond by La
Meilleraye, who was advancing in force, she again made her escape under
cover of a hunting party, after having provided for the safety of the
place and others which depended on it, and went in search of, amid a
host of difficulties, sometimes on horseback, at others in a litter or
by boat, the Dukes de Bouillon and La Rochefoucauld, who escorted her
to Bordeaux. One must turn to Lenet for all the details of that toilsome
journey and of the insurrection at Bordeaux, which he has related with
all the minutiae and animation of an eye-witness and an actor who more
than once figured in the front rank. No longer timid, no longer awkward,
in presence of danger the daughter of Marshal de Breze became the amazon
and almost the heroine. She held reviews, councils of war, negotiated,
and issued orders. Scarcely had she reached Bordeaux, her entry into
which was quite an ovation, than she besieged the Parliament chamber to
procure the registration of her requests and protestations against the
unjust detention of her husband. "She solicited the judges on their way
out of court, representing to them with tears in her eyes the u