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Updated: May 31, 2025
His memoirs give reliable details of all that relates to the Condés at this period. Still Gourville was not, even on the score of ability, the foremost spirit of his party. The person who deserved that title was a woman the celebrated Anne de Gonzagua, widow of Edward Prince Palatine.
In 1645, then, Anne de Gonzagua found herself definitively settled at Paris, and it must be owned did not give Henri de Guise much cause to regret his faithlessness.
He was fascinated by the grace and beauty of Anne de Gonzagua, and she herself, in the midst of that gallant Court which masked a real depravation under the thin varnish of an ingenious subtlety of expression, she herself, a disciple of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, where questions of sentiment were discussed, studied, and analysed incessantly, knew not how to resist the gilded accents of a young, handsome, and impassioned lover.
This unfortunate Prince had married, in 1613, Elizabeth, daughter of James I. of England. The celebrated Prince Rupert and Sophia, Electress of Hanover, were among the other children. During those stormy years of the civil wars, through her diplomatic talents, Anne de Gonzagua shone conspicuously in the front rank of female politicians.
Now and again the two poor nags seemed to wake up and trot for a little space, though gasping for breath, when they had some detail to record which no doubt moved them to rapture; they expatiated complacently on the virtues of Catherine of Sweden or Robert de la Chaise-Dieu, who as soon as they were born cried for sinless wet-nurses, and would suck none but pious breasts; or they spoke with ravishment of the chastity of Jean the Taciturn, who never took a bath, that he might not shock "his modest eyes," as the text says, by seeing himself; and the bashful purity of San Luis de Gonzagua, who had such a terror of women that he dared not look at his mother for fear of evil thoughts!
Amongst those ladies foremost in their congratulations was the Princess Palatine, with whom we have already made some acquaintance Anne de Gonzagua, one of the most eminent personages of the seventeenth century.
Anne de Gonzagua experienced those extremes. She passed from incredulity and an irregular life to the most lively faith and exemplary conduct.
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