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One Sunday at La Rochefoucauld Market she had made her peace with Satin after having flown at her with furious reproaches about Mme Robert. But Satin had been content to answer that when one didn't like a thing there was no reason why one should want to disgust others with it.
When Bonaparte was officially informed by his Ambassador at Vienna, the young La Rochefoucauld, that the Emperor of Germany had declined being one of his grand officers of the Legion of Honour, he flew into a rage, and used against this Prince the most gross, vulgar, and unbecoming language. I have heard it said that he went so far as to say, "Well, Francis II. is tired of reigning.
But leave it to me, I promise to arrange that Augustus shall not be bored." He picked up La Rochefoucauld and opened it. "I see you have marked some of the maximes." "No. Grandmamma and the Marquis must have done that. Look, they are all of the most witty and cynical that are pencilled. I can hear them talking when I read them. That is just how they spoke to one another."
It was through the proximity of his father's château of Verteuil to Poitiers, where the Duchess de Chevreuse was then living in banishment from Court, that the Prince de Marsillac first came to ally himself with the illustrious political adventuress. At the time when La Rochefoucauld obtained political notoriety, a crisis occurred in France in national manners, sentiments, and feelings.
Now La Rochefoucauld should have been the last person to complain of that defect, since he was the first to foster it in the Duchess. In her bosom love awoke ambition, but the awakening was so sudden, in fact, that any difference in the two passions was never perceptible. Singular contradiction!
La Rochefoucauld accuses her of having brought misfortune upon all those whom she loved; it is equally the truth to add that all those whom she loved hurried her in the sequel into insensate enterprises.
Her Friendship with Mme. de Sevigne Her Education Her Devotion to the Princess Henrietta Her Salon La Rochefoucauld Talent as a Diplomatist Comparison with Mme. de Maintenon Her Literary Work Sadness of her Last Days Woman in Literature "Believe me, my dearest, you are the person in the world whom I have most truly loved," wrote Mme. de La Fayette to Mme. de Sevigne a short time before her death.
There have always been, and always will be, people who experience a sort of malaise, an ill-defined discomfort, as though they sat in an east wind, while they read La Rochefoucauld.
When the news came that his favorite grandson had been killed in battle, she says again: "I have seen his heart laid bare in this cruel misfortune; he ranks first among all I have ever known for courage, fortitude, tenderness, and reason; I count for nothing his esprit and his charm." In all the confidences of the two women, La Rochefoucauld makes a third.
In science France was, indeed, outstripped by England and Florence. But in eloquence, poetry, literature, and philosophy the French were the legislators of Europe. One of the works which most contributed to. forming the national taste was the "Maxims" of La Rochefoucauld.
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