unblemished brilliancy, then a period
of elegant and intellectual debauch, and finally one of expiation.

"Her politics," says Sainte-Beuve, "considered in the _ensemble_, are
nothing more than a desire to please, to shine--a capricious love. Her
character lacked consistency and self-will, her mind was keen, ready,
subtle, ingenious, but not reasonable."

In her convent life, her crowning virtue was humility. Her enemies did
not cease to attack her, but she received all their affronts with
the noblest resignation. The following testimonies are taken from a
Jansenist manuscript of 1685:

"She never said anything to her own advantage. She made use of as
many occasions as she could find for humiliating herself without any
affectation. What she said, she said so well that it could not be
better said. She listened much, never interrupted, and never showed
any eagerness to speak. She spoke sensibly, modestly, charitably, and
without passion. To court her was to speak with equity and without
passion of everyone and to esteem the good in all. Her whole exterior,
her voice, her face, her gestures, were a perfect music; and her mind
and body served her so well in expressing what she wished to make
heard, that she appeared the most perfect actress in the world."

Her love for La Rochefoucauld was the secret of her failure in life.
When she experienced the disappointments of her married life and
discovered that her dream of being loved by her husband could not be
realized, she looked to other sources for diversion. She was not an
intriguing woman like Mme. de Chevreuse, but one of ambitions which
were incited by her love for and interest in the objects of her
affection. Although she carried on flirtations with Coligny and the
Duke of Nemours, she really loved no one but La Rochefoucauld, to
whom she sacrificed her reputation and tranquillity, her duties and
interests. For him she took up the cause of the Fronde; for him she
was a mere slave, her entire existence being given up to his love, his
whims, his service; when he failed her, she was lost, exhausted, and
retired to a convent at the age of thirty-five and in the full bloom
of her beauty. Her professed lover simply used her as a means to an
end, seeking only his own interests in the Fronde, while she sought
his; and this is the explanation of her seeming inconsistency of
conduct. In her religious life she was happy and contented; surrounded
by her friends, she lived peace