eulogium may be perhaps a little over-coloured. But Madame de
Motteville, who also greatly admired the Palatine, probably approaches
nearer to the truth. "This princess," she says, "like many other ladies,
did not despise the conquests of her eyes, which were in truth very
beautiful; but, besides that advantage, she had that which was of more
value, I mean wit, address, capacity for conducting an intrigue, and a
singular facility in finding expedients for succeeding in what she
undertook." Thus spoke the Coadjutor and the Court of her. The
parliamentary party, by the organ of the councillor Joly, confirms such
panegyric: "She had so much intelligence, and a talent so peculiar for
business, that no one in the world ever succeeded better than she did."
The Princess Palatine's political dexterity cannot therefore be
contested: the testimony of the most opposite camps are thereupon
agreed, and it is certain that, without the least exaggeration, it may
be said that no one at that epoch, save Mazarin, better understood the
resources of diplomacy.

It was especially after the arrest of the Princes that her zeal and
intelligence found occasion to manifest themselves. Madame de
Longueville, as has been said, instantly sought the aid of Anne de
Gonzagua when she learned that her two brothers and her husband were
prisoners. The news made her swoon, and her despair was afterwards
pitiable. The Princess Palatine was touched by it, and promised to
operate on behalf of the Princes. From that moment she became, without
entering into faction and especially without failing in her duties
towards a sovereign whom she loved, one of the most active friends of
the prisoners. Meetings were held under her roof to deliberate upon that
important affair, and, to compass her ends, she contrived to bring into
play the most varied resources. She began by interesting in the Princes'
destiny those even who might have been thought the most irreconcileable
enemies to them. However difficult this work was of accomplishment, she
reunited, as in a fasces, in a single will, personages widely separated
upon other points, and surprised to find that they were pursuing the
same object, for none of them knew the motives which influenced the
actions of the rest. On this head, Bossuet says, with somewhat excessive
laudation, she declared to the chiefs of parties how far she would bind
herself, and she was believed to be incapable of either deceiving or
being deceiv