Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/302

282 Among the actors in the first Fronde whom De Retz portrays is François VI., Duc de la Rochefoucauld (1613-1689). "Il y a eu du je ne sais quoi en M. de la Rochefoucauld.... Il a toujours eu une irrésolution habituelle; mais je ne sais même à quoi attributer cette irrésolution....  Il n'a jamais été guerrier, quoiqu'il fut très soldat.  Il n'a jamais été par lui-même bon courtisan, quoiqu'il ait eu toujours bonne intention de l'être.  Il n'a jamais été bon homme de parti, quoique toute sa vie il y ait été engagé." "Cet air de honte et de timidité que vous lui voyez dans la vie civile s'était tourné, dans les affaires, en air d'apologie." Not less an egotist than De Retz or more averse to intrigue, La Rochefoucauld was less the man of action and of will. Vanity and passion, rather than ambition for power, involved him in the intrigues and crimes of the Fronde. He was under the influence of women. And when his hopes were shattered, he did not spend his last days like De Retz in trying to find new methods, but digested his disappointment in a philosophy of human nature.

La Rochefoucauld's Mémoires are written in the third person, in a colder and more detached tone than De Retz's, and in a more elaborately elegant and balanced style. His portraits are drawn with vivacity, and show as might be expected subtlety and insight. But La Rochefoucauld did a greater service for posterity than write a history of the Fronde. He crystallised the impressions which the experience of those years had left on his mind in a small collection