mpassionate to the poor
and oppressed, Mme. de Hautefort is a type of those great women of
the seventeenth century who stood for honor, courage, generosity,
sympathy, and virtue; fervently, even austerely, religious, she was
yet far removed from anything resembling bigotry. Among the ladies
of the Hotel de Rambouillet, she was one of the most popular; her
vivacity, modesty, and reserve, combined with a tall figure, imposing
bearing, and large, expressive blue eyes, won the hearts of many
cavaliers, among whom the most prominent were the Dukes of Lorraine
and La Rochefoucauld.

A close second to Mme. de Chevreuse in influence and power, was Mme.
de Longueville, a woman of exquisite and aristocratic beauty, of
brilliant mind, and an adept in the art of conversation. Tender and
kind, but ambitious, she, like many others of her time and sex, had
two distinct periods--one of conquest and one of penitence and pious
devotion.

Born in a prison at Vincennes during the captivity of her father,
the great Henry of Bourbon, Prince of Conde, she in time developed
remarkable personal charms. Her early days were spent at the convent
of the Carmelites and at the Hotel de Rambouillet, her mind--in these
opposite worlds of religion and society--being divided between pious
meditations and romantic dreams. At the time of the execution at
Toulouse of her uncle, M. de Montmorency, she seriously considered
entering the Carmelite convent.

Upon making her social debut, she immediately became one of the
leaders about whom all the gallants gathered. She formed a fast
friendship with Mme. de Sable, Mme. de Rambouillet, Mme. de
Bouteville, and Mlle. du Vigean. Her beauty, which was quite
phenomenal, soon became the subject of poetry. Voltaire wrote:

"De perles, d'astres et de fleurs,
Bourbon, le ciel fit tes couleurs,
Et mit dedans tout ce melange
L'esprit d'un ange!
L'on jugerait par la blancheur
De Bourbon, et par sa fraicheur,
Qu'elle a prit naissance des lis."

[The heaven made thy colors, Bourbon, of pearls, of stars, of flowers,
and to all this mixture added the spirit of an angel. One would judge
by the whiteness and freshness of Bourbon that she was born of the
lilies.]

In 1642, at the age of twenty-three, she was married, against her
will, to M. de Longueville who was, after the princes of the blood,
the greatest seigneur of France; he was old and indifferent, and
enamored of another woman, while she was youn