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Updated: April 30, 2025
A great thing was accomplished, whatsoever had been the cause. A soul which incredulity had frozen into apathy became fervent before its Creator. Anne de Gonzagua did not fear to let her repentance be seen; she desired that the publicity of her penitence might obliterate, if it were possible, the scandal of her past life. Her conscience became tender, even scrupulous.
But, in short, whether Anne de Gonzagua saw or thought that she saw that mystical mendicant, and those symbolical animals, in her slumbers, the truth is that in soul she was touched, agitated, shaken, overcome. An ardent faith, an invincible longing for prayer and penitence, had obtained the mastery over that rebellious soul.
In the midst of those intrigues, of that puerile ambition, of those turnings and windings, perfidy, seduction, manoeuvring promises, of those negotiations in which Mazarin infused all his Italian cunning, the Queen her feminine impatience and her Spanish dissimulation, De Retz his genius of artist-conspirator, Condé his pride of the prince and the conqueror, Anne de Gonzagua handled political matters with a rare suppleness, humouring offended self-love, impatient ambition, haughty rivalries, acting as mediatrix with a wonderful amount of conciliatory tact, the friend of divers chiefs of parties, and meriting the confidence of all.
Our notice of this celebrated woman would be incomplete without a passing glance at the singular fortunes of Henri de Guise, subsequent to his desertion of his first love, Anne de Gonzagua.
Anne de Gonzagua, who was ready to open fire with all her batteries, sought to terrify him by the perspective of a menacing future.
Anne de Gonzagua, the Princess Palatine, lived long after the Fronde in the midst of all sorts of political troubles and diplomatic intrigues: conferences innumerable were held beneath her roof, and in that tortuous labyrinth she wandered and manoeuvred to her heart's delight.
Thus abandoned by her volatile lover, and extremely compromised, Mademoiselle de Gonzagua returned to Paris, where she reassumed the appellation of the Princess Anne. Her grief for awhile at her abandonment was great, but happily for Anne de Gonzagua, she was possessed of youth, and, as Madame de Motteville tells us, "of beauty and great mental attractions."
It was especially after the arrest of the Princes that her zeal and intelligence found occasion to manifest themselves. Madame de Longueville, as has been said, instantly sought the aid of Anne de Gonzagua when she learned that her two brothers and her husband were prisoners. The news made her swoon, and her despair was afterwards pitiable.
The Duchess thought that the high dignities of the Church would procure greater wealth, honour, and power for her son than he could obtain in any other career: Henri was then Archbishop of Rheims. Nevertheless, he persisted in his love for Mademoiselle de Gonzagua, and in his design of espousing her. The overtures which he made to the Vatican were not in vain.
The Duchesses de Chevreuse, De Montbazon, De Guéméné, and other famous feminine factionists of that time, became, in the hands of Anne de Gonzagua, as so many wires with which she moved at her will the men whom these women governed; for the Princess exercised alike over all those men and women that superiority which disinterestedness, good faith, and firmness of decision confer.
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