Page:Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin.djvu/182

168 over her beauty, but she was still graceful, and her keen penetration, her decision, her boldness, and her genius, remained entire. She had found a last friend in the Marquis de Laigues, captain of the guards of the Duke d'Orleans, a man of spirit and of resolution, whom she loved till the end, and with whom after the death of M. de Chevreuse in 1657, she probably united her destiny by one of those mariages de conscience then very much in fashion. We cannot be expected to follow her step by step, and to entangle ourselves in the mazes of the Fronde. It suffices to say that she enacted one of the principal roles in it. Attached to the heart of the party and to its essential interests, she guided it through every danger with incomparable address and energy. After relying so long upon Spain, she knew how to separate from it at the right time. She preserved a powerful influence over the Duke of Lorraine, and it is not difficult to recognize her hand concealed behind the ambiguous and often hostile movements