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Who sent away Madame de Chevreuse after she had been persecuted twelve years under the last reign?" "A woman of intrigue, who wanted to keep up against me the spirit of cabal she had raised against M. de Richelieu." "Who dismissed Madame de Hautefort, that friend so loyal that she refused the favor of the king that she might remain in mine?"
Mme. de Hautefort was opposed to the queen on account of her liaison with her minister and her lack of fidelity to those who, in time of trouble, had served her so well. As dame d'atours, she was forced either to close her eyes to all scenes between the cardinal and Anne or to combat the regent and resign.
Bertran lamented his loss in two famous poems, and soon felt the material effects of it. On June 29, Richard and the King of Aragon arrived before Hautefort, which surrendered after a week's resistance. Richard restored the castle to Constantin, but Bertran regained possession, as is related in the second biography.
Such great, good, and brilliant women as the Countess of Maure, Mlle. de Vandy, Anne de Rohan, Mme. de Brégy, Mme. de Hautefort, Mme. de Longueville, Mme. de Sévigné, Mme. de La Fayette, and Mme. de Sablé were inmates of Port-Royal, or its friends and constant visitors. Port-Royal may have been the cause of the civil war waged by the Frondists against the government.
Where again can we find such a galaxy of beauties as that formed by Charlotte de Montmorency, Mme. de Chevreuse, Mme. de Hautefort, Mme. de Montbazon, Mme. de Guémené, Mme. de Châtillon, Mme. de Longueville, Marie de Gonzague, Henriette de la Vallière, Mme. de Montespan, Mme. de Maintenon, without enumerating such great writers and leaders of salons as Mme. de Rambouillet, Mlle. de Scudéry, Mme. de Lambert, Mme. de Sévigné, and Mme. de la Fayette?
Indifferent to the powerful, but kind and compassionate to the poor and oppressed, Mme. de Hautefort is a type of those great women of the seventeenth century who stood for honor, courage, generosity, sympathy, and virtue; fervently, even austerely, religious, she was yet far removed from anything resembling bigotry.
The Countesse de Maure, who does not believe in the absolute depravity of human nature, and is inclined to an elevated Christian philosophy quite opposed to Jansenism, writes with so much severity that she begs her friend not to show her letter to the author. Mme. de Hautefort expresses her disapproval of a theory which drives honor and goodness out of the world.
No wonder that her salon at Port Royal was the favorite resort of such women as Madame de la Fayette, Madame de Montausier, Madame de Longueville, and Madame de Hautefort; and of such men as Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Nicole, and Domat. The collections of Valant contain papers which show what were the habitual subjects of conversation in this salon.
There she gathered about her the most exclusive and aristocratic people of the day: La Rochefoucauld, the Prince and Princess of Conti, Condé, Monsieur,—brother of Louis XIV.,—Mme. de La Fayette, Mme. de Hautefort, and others.
She was handsome to the last, and young in mind and in habits long after youth had left her. I was said to be the image of what she was when she rivalled Madame de Hautefort in the affections of the late King. You must consider, sweetheart, that he was the most moral of men, and that with him love meant a passion as free from sensual taint as the preferences of a sylph.
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