to mourning." Thus, throughout, her Memoirs glitter like the
coat with which the splendid Buckingham astonished the cheaper chivalry of
France: they drop diamonds.

But for any personal career Mademoiselle found at first no opportunity, in
the earlier years of the Fronde. A gay, fearless, flattered girl, she
simply shared the fortunes of the court; laughed at the
festivals in the palace, laughed at the ominous insurrections in the
streets; laughed when the people cheered her, their pet princess; and when
the royal party fled from Paris, she adroitly secured for herself the best
straw-bed at St. Germain, and laughed louder than ever. She despised the
courtiers who flattered her; secretly admired her young cousin Conde, whom
she affected to despise; danced when the court danced, and ran away when
it mourned. She made all manner of fun of her English lover, the future
Charles II., whom she alone of all the world found bashful; and in general
she wasted the golden hours with much excellent fooling. Nor would she,
perhaps, ever have found herself a heroine, but that her respectable
father was a poltroon.

Lord Mahon ventures to assert, that Gaston, Duke of Orleans, was "the most
cowardly prince of whom history makes mention." A strong expression, but
perhaps safe. Holding the most powerful position in the nation, he never
came upon the scene but to commit some new act of ingenious pusillanimity;
while, by some extraordinary chance, every woman of his immediate kindred
was a natural heroine, and became more heroic through disgust at him. His
wife was Marguerite of Lorraine, who originated the first Fronde
insurrection; his daughter turned the scale of the second. But,
personally, he not only had not the courage to act, but he had not the
courage to abstain from acting; he could no more keep out of parties than
in them; but was always busy, waging war in spite of Mars, and negotiating
in spite of Minerva.

And when the second war of the Fronde broke out, it was in spite of
himself that he gave his name and his daughter to the popular cause. When
the fate of the two nations hung trembling in the balance, the royal army
under Turenne advancing on Paris, and almost arrived at the city of
Orleans, and that city likely to take the side of the strongest,--then
Mademoiselle's hour had come. All her sympathies were more and more
inclining to the side of Conde and the people. Orleans was her own
hereditary city. Her father, as was hi