Perpignan he was ordered to
northern Italy, where in the course of three years he performed the
exploits which made him a brigadier-general at twenty-six. Though
repeatedly wounded, he survived twelve years of constant fighting with
no {21} more serious casualty than a broken arm which he carried away
from the siege of Orbitello. By the time peace was signed at Muenster
he had become a soldier well proved in the most desperate war which had
been fought since Europe accepted Christianity.

To the great action of the Thirty Years' War there soon succeeded the
domestic commotion of the Fronde. Richelieu, despite his high
qualities as a statesman, had been a poor financier; and Cardinal
Mazarin, his successor, was forced to cope with a discontent which
sprang in part from the misery of the masses and in part from the
ambition of the nobles. As Louis XIV was still an infant when his
father died, the burden of government fell in name upon the
queen-mother, Anne of Austria, but in reality upon Mazarin. Not even
the most disaffected dared to rebel against the young king in the sense
of disputing his right to reign. But in 1648 the extreme youth of
Louis XIV made it easy for discontented nobles, supported by the
Parlement of Paris, to rebel against an unpopular minister.

The year 1648, which witnessed the Peace of Westphalia and the outbreak
of the Fronde, was rendered memorable to Frontenac by his marriage. It
was a runaway match, which {22} began an extraordinary alliance between
two very extraordinary people. The bride, Anne de la Grange-Trianon,
was a daughter of the Sieur de Neuville, a gentleman whose house in
Paris was not far from that of Frontenac's parents. At the time of the
elopement she was only sixteen, while Frontenac had reached the ripe
age of twenty-eight. Both were high-spirited and impetuous. We know
also that Frontenac was hot-tempered. For a short time they lived
together and there was a son. But before the wars of the Fronde had
closed they drifted apart, from motives which were personal rather than
political.

[Illustration: LADY FRONTENAC. From a painting in the Versailles
Gallery.]

Madame de Frontenac then became a maid of honour to the Duchesse de
Montpensier, daughter of Gaston d'Orleans[3] and first cousin to Louis
XIV. This princess, known as _La Grande Mademoiselle_, plunged into
the politics of the Fronde with a vigour which involved her whole
household--Madame de Frontenac i