Page:Memoirs of Madame de Motteville on Anne of Austria and her court.djvu/32

10 Mazarin, so adroit in turning to account the very excesses of hatred and accusation, in neutralizing and making his own profit from them, she says: "Cardinal Mazarin does with insults what Mithridates did with poisons, which instead of killing him came at last by constant usage to nourish him. The minister, in like manner, seems by his adroitness to make good use of public maledictions; he employs them in getting credit with the queen for suffering in her defence." We feel in these passages, and in the whole current of Madame de Motteville's style, a natural and poetic imagination, without much sparkle, but such as became the niece of the amiable poet Bertaut. In certain places we find some wealth of imagery in "flowers," "roses," "thorns," some trace of the bad taste of the Louis XIII. period ; but these are only here and there; her natural good sense usually reigns in her language as it does in her judgment and thought.

Madame de Motteville is a contemporary of Corneille, and has a little of the tone of the romances of that period in her language. Speaking of Cinq-Mars, she calls him " that amiable criminal ; " in relating the downfall of those whom fortune deserted she is touched by "so many illustrious unfortunates;" though still young she slightly regrets the olden time. Speaking of the old Maréchal de Bassompierre, whom the young men laughed at, she says, after praising his generosity, his magnificence, and his courteous manners: "The relics of the old maréchal are worth more than the youth of some of the most polished men of these times" (1646). In Corneille's plays she liked especially the lofty morality and the noble sentiments which had purified the stage. When Italian comedy was introduced under Mazarin's auspices she took but little pleasure in those musical plays. "Persons who understand them esteem them highly,"