The prince, who had reached the mature age of nearly twenty, was strongly opposed to the connection; but as his father insisted upon it, they were married. At the time, Claire's character could not have been very decidedly formed; since we read, that, two years after taking on herself the duties and responsibilities of a wife, she rejoiced in the company of dolls; and the wonder is, that, thus treated like a doll herself, she should ever have risen to any thing better. She never would, perhaps, had it not been for the cold neglect of her husband, whom she loved with an affection which was something unusual in France at that day, and which he was very far from deserving. Perhaps her appearance was not sufficiently attractive, though we are told that her small person was graceful and pleasing, and her conversation very engaging; or it may have been that he was forced into the connection entirely against his will, which was as true, however, of her as of him. Certain it is, that he showed neither pride nor pleasure in her company, and she suffered accordingly the evils of neglect and desertion. But meantime, those virtues, which are more apt to grow in the shade than the sunshine, were forming within her, preparing her to act a great and generous part, such as would cover her name with more glory than that of her husband, if the world knew how to be just, which it does not yet, and some doubt if it ever will.

The young Duke d'Enghien, for such was his title during his father's life, had seen some service before his marriage; and immediately after it he was very desirous to try his skill and success in arms. It is never difficult for a person of his rank to force his way to responsible stations; and Mazarin, who was then endeavouring to establish himself in the place of Richelieu, was easily induced to intrust the army and the defence of the state to a warrior hardly of age, who was equal to the trust certainly, but whose eminent fitness he had had no opportunity to know. His force consisted of about twelve thousand, opposed to more than twice that number of Spaniards, who were employed in laying siege to Rocroy. The Maréchal de l'Hôpital was intrusted with authority which limited and restrained his own; and this leader was constantly preaching caution. But Condé, while he pretended to pay regard to his veteran adviser, was all the while determined to risk a battle with the Spaniards; and a rein

forcement of eight or ten thousand, which he received on his march, brought the two armies nearer to equality of numbers, and gave some reasonable hope of success. The enemy was as desirous as himself to come to action, and the armies placed themselves at night in positions for battle on the morrow. Condé had silenced all remonstrance against the bold step he was taking, by declaring that all the consequences should be upon his own head. He slept so soundly

at night, that they were obliged to wake him in the morning. Instead of a helmet, such as was then generally worn with defensive armor, he put on a hat with long white plumes, after the fashion of "the helmet of Navarre." When the battle began, he threw himself on the right wing of the Spaniards, and compelled them to give way. But the Maréchal de l'Hôpital was less successful; the left of the French army was routed, and fell back on the reserve.

As soon as D'Enghien heard of this disaster, he immediately recalled his troops from the pursuit, turned them upon the rear of the victorious army of the enemy, and thus inclosing them between his own troops and his reserve, destroyed their triumph at the moment when it seemed to be sure. But the Spanish infantry in the centre remained unbroken, and when the French attacked, they were thrown into disorder by a tremendous fire. A second and a third time, the young general led them in person to the charge, and each time was driven back. At last the Spaniards were surrounded and overpowered, and of eighteen thousand who went into action not more than two thousand remained alive.

This firm resistance shows that the young general had strong enemies to encounter; and the whole arrangements of the battle show that it was gained, not by accident, if there is any such a thing, but by presence of mind, determination, and skill. It gave occasion to De Retz, who had no love for him, to say that "he was born a captain; which only happened to him, to Cæsar, and Spinola; he equalled the first, he surpassed the second." D'Enghien threw himself on his knees at the head of his army to render thanks to the God of battles for this signal success. "It was weel meant,―weel meant"; and yet it sounds at the present day somewhat like misplaced devotion. Jeremy Taylor strongly objects to offering an incense of assafoetida, in which, it is to be presumed, he had a figurative meaning; and if a sacrifice so

unsavory is ever presented, one would think it must be such asrises from a field covered with horrible carnage, and in presence of the dying and the dead.

This battle raised the reputation of the young chief at once to the highest point. It was made the subject of private theatricals at Paris, a celebration sufficiently French in its taste. Madame de Sévigné speaks of her granddaughter Pauline as acting the part of the officer" who distinguished himself so agreeably" on the morning of the engagement, by killing the trumpeter who waked the prince too early; an incident which, if true, shows what an accurate moral discernment one might obtain in the service, of the guilt and due penalties of sin. It is curious to see how the intrigues and squabbles of women, high in rank, but low enough in life and conversation, engaged the young warrior on his return, and required more statesmanship on the part of Mazarin than the management of all the foreign relations. D'Enghien's sister was a beautiful vixen, and to satisfy her the cardinal banished two other ladies of a rival faction, not to speak of sundry noblemen, and sent to the dungeon of Vincennes for years the Duke of Beaufort, whose crime it was to be a lover of the lady who had offended the culminating star. But the army having been intrusted to Gaston, Duke of Orleans, the same who figures so brilliantly in De Retz, putting that able and crafty person at his wits' end to manage him, so thoroughly unfit was he for any sort of judgment or action, his generalship brought matters to such a pass, that D'Enghien, and Turenne, a more experienced warrior, were both required to repair the mischief which he had done. These two great generals met at Fribourg, where the Bavarian army was strongly encamped, and commanded by the Count de Mercy, the most formidable name of the day. Turenne, who was cold and calm, was in favor of caution and delay; but D'Enghien, who was higher in authority, determined on an immediate assault. He ordered his troops to the charge; but with all their efforts they found it impossible to force the intrenchments, till he sprang from his horse, threw his marshal's baton over the wall, and, by giving this impulse and example to his men, sent them on with a fury which there was no resisting.

The truth seems to be, that one great secret of these wonderful martial successes is a wild prodigality of blood. So

it was with Napoleon; so it is with most of those whom the world delights to honor. It is because they make no hesitation of sacrificing their thousands that they can sweep all resistance away. Turenne, after the bloody battle of Fribourg, was touched with compassion for the misery which it occasioned; but D'Enghien pleasantly remarked, that "one night of Paris would repair their loss of men." Let no one suppose, however, that he was deficient in feeling. On the contrary, in the following year, when he was obliged to leave Madame de Vigear for the army, the shock of separation was so dreadful to him that he fainted away. It has been suggested as an excuse for this kind of attachment, that he was forced into a marriage with his wife; but it happened to be equally true that she was forced into a marriage with him; and while he was living in this base self-indulgence, she was spending her days in solitude, loving him all the while with a faithfulness which he was far enough from deserving. In the battle of Nordlingen, another of those days in which his genius shone forth with such wonderful brightness, he was overcome by his efforts, and fell dangerously ill. On his return to Paris, he had lost all affection for the lady to whom he was so much devoted before. This the French sagaciously ascribed to his dangerous illness and the great quantity of blood which he had lost. It never appeared to occur to them, that attachments of that kind have not the surest foundation; a guilty passion is rather flourishing and sentimental than deep and enduring. The lady, whose conduct had been without reproach, except in permitting his attentions, took the vows of a Carmelite nun and renounced the world for ever.

Those

It may easily be supposed that such a person as D'Enghien must have had enthusiastic followers in Paris. who looked to him as the glass in which to dress themselves imitated his haughty bearing, and were called, in contempt and dislike, petits maîtres, a name which has fallen somewhat from its ancient meaning without acquiring a better. He certainly had something haughty in his demeanour; and Mazarin began to feel the necessity of clipping his wings, which were in danger of soaring too high. The minister could not be persuaded to give him the post of high-admiral, which he demanded in return for his services, and which, in England and France, at the time, was often assigned to those

who had never seen the sea. Still, his private discontents were forgotten in his passion for glory; and in 1648, he was at the head of an army, opposed to the Austrian Archduke Leopold, whom he encountered at the battle of Lens, which was considered the most glorious action of the day. The Spaniards were completely defeated, and their general, Beck, who was the soul of the service, was mortally wounded. It is recorded of him, that he was so much enraged at his misfortune, that he rejected all the civilities and attentions of D'Enghien, and did nothing but swear for the remainder of his life. This was not a very edifying departure; though while living he was about as pious as some great men, of whom it is recorded, that they manifested the spirit of sincere and excellent Christians.

But we turn from the accounts of battles, which are very much like each other, to a passage of history in which this chief, who had become Prince of Condé by the death of his father, appears in a different light; not flourishing at the head of armies, where he was so much at home, but attempting to sustain a capricious and violent queen, Anne of Austria, and her cunning favorite, Mazarin, against the patriotic firmness of the parliament, which had reason, right, and substantial power on its side. The prince had no taste nor capacity for intrigue, was entirely unambitious of eminence as a statesman, and, as one of the royal race, was naturally indisposed to lessen the influence by lowering the pretensions of his order. Still he was too important to stand neutral; and though, when he returned to Paris, at the summons of the queen, he was desirous to heal the disorders of the state, he had neither patience nor wisdom in dealing with the various parties; and thus made himself more offensive to all of them than essential to any one.

It was Mazarin's policy to employ these contending factions to tear each other for his own proper advantage; when he made friends with any of them, it was that they might be made odious by sharing his own unpopularity. The result was, that, after wading through a civil war, not particularly creditable to either party, in which Condé found himself opposed in the field to his own companion in arms, Turenne, towards whom he bore himself generously, he became so formidable that Mazarin patched up an alliance with the Frondeurs, in order to put him down. With the aid and support of