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She was assisted in her intrigues by the Marquis de Laignes, a man of courage but little intellect, who, from the time of her exile at Brussels, had declared himself her lover in order to gain importance in the faction of the Fronde, which he had embraced.
Hacqueville was the intimate friend of De Retz and also of Madame de Sevigné; and seconded by Madame de Chevreuse and Madame de Rhodes, De Retz might have succeeded in the expulsion of Laignes, if Hacqueville would have consented to that project.
At length, to have some one who could be responsible to him for Madame de Chevreuse, he endeavoured to substitute Hacqueville as a go-between in the place of De Laignes.
This latter match having been broken off in a manner the most outrageous to her feelings, Madame de Chevreuse had separated from Condé with éclat; and, too experienced to ally herself with the sort of tiers-parti which Retz had proposed, but allowing herself to be gently and skilfully guided by the Marquis de Laignes, whom Mazarin with his usual adroitness had known how to win over, she had returned to the side of her early friend, Anne of Austria, and became resigned to the power of a man who at any rate knew his own mind, and whose robust ambition never wavered at the breath of vanity or the gust of momentary passion.
As little more of the attractions of her youth were left to Madame de Chevreuse, save their pristine celebrity, she had not always to congratulate herself upon the good humour and behaviour of De Laignes. The latter had been until then wholly devoted to the Coadjutor; but De Retz soon perceived that De Laignes entered into projects different from his own.
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