ly her place. Unfortunately for these plans,
and fortunately perhaps for a certain interesting phase of literature,
she recovered. Soon afterwards, Mademoiselle found the reward of her
heroic adventures in a sudden exile to her estates at Saint Fargeau. The
country life, so foreign to her tastes, pressed upon her very heavily
at first, the more so as she was deserted by most of her friends.
"I received more compliments than visits," she writes. "I had made
everybody ill. All those who did not dare send me word that they feared
to embroil themselves with the court pretended that some malady or
accident had befallen them." By degrees, however, she adapted herself to
her situation, and in her loneliness and disappointment betook herself
to pursuits which offered a strong contrast to the dazzling succession
of magnificent fetes and military episodes which had given variety and
excitement to her life at the Tuileries. When she grew tired of her
parrots, her dogs, her horses, her comedians and her violin, she found
solace in literature, beginning the "Memoirs," which were finished
thirty years later, and writing romances, after the manner of Mlle. de
Scudery. The drift of the first one, "Les Nouvelles Francaises et les
Divertissements de la Princesse Aurelie," is suggested by its title. It
was woven from the little stories or adventures which were told to
amuse their solitude by the small coterie of women who had followed the
clouded fortunes of Mademoiselle. A romance of more pretension was the
"Princesse de Paphlagonie," in which the writer pictures her own little
court, and introduces many of its members under fictitious names.
These romances have small interest for the world today, but the exalted
position of their author and their personal character made them much
talked of in their time.

It was in quite another fashion, however, that the Grande Mademoiselle
made her most important contribution to literature. One day in 1657,
while still in the country, she proposed to her friends to make pen
portraits of themselves, and set the fashion by writing her own, with a
detailed description of her physical, mental, and moral qualities. This
was followed by carefully drawn pictures of others, among whom were
Louis XIV, Monsieur, and the Grand Conde. All were bound in honor to
give the lights and shadows with the same fidelity, though it would be
hardly wise to call them to too strict an account on this point. As may
be readily