rors it would be wrong to palliate or condone, their example, it is to
be hoped, will prove deterrent rather than contagious. La
Rochefoucauld--a moralist, though by no means a moral man--who well knew
the sex, had seen at work these political women of the time of the
Fronde. That opportunity does not appear to have inspired him with an
unbounded admiration for them from that point of view.

Of the peril and mischief that fair trio inflicted upon Anne of
Austria's great Prime Minister and the State he governed we have an
interesting personal record. When, in 1660, Mazarin's policy, triumphant
on every side, had added the treaty of the Pyrenees to that of
Westphalia, the honour of the conclusion of the protracted conference
held at the _Isle of Pheasants_ was reserved for the chief Ministers of
the two Crowns--the Cardinal and Don Louis de Haro. The latter
congratulated his brother premier on the well-earned repose he was about
to enjoy, after such a long and arduous struggle. The Cardinal replied
that he could not promise himself any repose in France, for there, he
said, the _female_ politicians were more to be dreaded than the _male_;
and he complained bitterly of the torments he had undergone at the hands
of certain political women of the Fronde--notably the Duchess de
Longueville, the Duchess de Chevreuse, and the Princess Palatine, each
of whom, he asserted, was capable of upsetting three kingdoms.

"You are very lucky here in Spain," he added. "You have, as everywhere
else, two kinds of women--coquettes in abundance, and a very few
simple-minded domestic women. The former care only to please their
lovers, the latter their husbands. Neither the one nor the other,
however, have any ambition beyond indulging themselves in vanities and
luxuries. They only employ their pens in scribbling billet-doux or
love-confessions, neither one nor other bother their brains as to how
the grain grows, whilst talking about business makes their heads ache.
Our women, on the contrary, whether prudes or flirts, old or young,
stupid or clever, will intermeddle with everything. No honest woman," to
use the Cardinal's own words, "would permit her spouse to go to sleep,
no coquette allow her lover any favour, ere she had heard all the
political news of the day. They will see all that goes on, will know
everything, and--what is worse--have a finger in everything, and set
everything in confusion. We have a trio, among others"--and he again
na