Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/181

Rh, one of the most resolute men of the party, she encouraged the remnant of the Importants in France, and stirred up everywhere the fire of sedition. Passionate, yet always mistress of herself, she preserved a smooth brow in the midst of tempests, at the same time displaying an indefatigable activity in surprising the weak sides of the enemy. Availing herself equally of the Catholic and the Protestant parties, sometimes she meditated a revolt in Languedoc or an invasion in Brittany; sometimes, at the least symptom of discontent manifested by any important personage, she labored to detach him from Mazarin and to win him to her cause. In 1647, her piercing eye discerned in the heart of the Congress of Munster some signs of a misunderstanding between the French ambassador, the Duke de Longueville, and the prime minister, which in fact was with difficulty arranged, and to her belongs the mournful honor of having from that time founded too just hopes on the ill-regulated ambition and the variable temper of the Duke d'Enghien, quite recently become Prince de Condé.

Time advanced, the Fronde broke forth; and the ardent duchess rushed again from Brussels in 1649, and brought to her friends the support of Spain and of her experience. She was then nearly fifty years of age. Years and sorrows had