was easy for one so inefficient and powerless to injure; while Condé, who could not so readily humble himself to Mazarin, determined to continue the civil war by means of the armies of Spain. But the slow and pompous movements of their generals, their utter ignorance of the art of war, and their jealousy of his great name, prevented his undertaking spirited enterprises, and destroyed all hope of ultimate success. It was interesting to see how well he was understood by his great rival, Turenne. At the siege of Arras, that general told his officers, that he should that day, at noon, make an assault, at a certain point, upon the Spanish lines. They pointed out to him that another point was weaker; but he replied to them that the Prince of Condé, who never slept, was there; while at the point where he intended to strike, the Spaniards would first take it for a feint, then, finding their mistake, they would wake their general from his afternoon slumber; he, when fairly roused, which would be a work of time, would go to wake the archduke for his orders, and before these operations could be finished the work of the French would be done. All took place as he had predicted; the loss of the Spaniards was great, and they were saved only by a masterly retreat, conducted under Condé's orders.

The prince paid a similar compliment to Turenne, by avoiding the force which he commanded, and falling, at Valenciennes, upon the army of the Maréchal de la Ferté, which was separated by the Scheldt from the other, and with such success that he took the Maréchal, with nearly all his officers and more than four thousand men. When Dunkirk was invested by Turenne, and Condé endeavoured in vain to prevail on the Spanish general to avoid a battle, he said to him, "You do not know M. de Turenne; faults are not committed with impunity before so great a man." Without contesting the point farther, the prince turned to the young Duke of Gloucester, and asked him if he had ever "seen a battle." He replied that he had not. "Well," said Condé, "in half an hour from this time, you will see a battle lost." The battle, indeed, was lost, and Dunkirk surrendered; Spain was no longer able to continue the war. Accordingly, terms were made, in which the interests of the prince were consulted, and he was able to return to France with the most exalted reputation for martial talent, and not in discredit on account of his disloyalty in an age when treason was too common to be thought a sin.

It is melancholy to see that military greatness and an apparent elevation of feeling in some respects are consistent with great hardness of heart. After the efforts which the princess had made during his imprisonment, in which she manifested the great resources of her character and the depth of her affection, his better feeling seemed awakened; he treated her with respect and tenderness, and she rejoiced in the change, believing it would be permanent, and trusting that the cloud which had darkened over her existence had passed away. But the want of heart in his composition could not be concealed by any grateful attentions; he soon relapsed into his former indifference and neglect, and she fell into disease and depression. At one time, he said to a friend that the next news he expected to hear was that of his wife's death; a sort of hardness which Mademoiselle, daughter of the Duke of Orleans, says in her Memoirs made her blush for him; and surely, nothing trifling could have produced an effect so unusual and extraordinary in a lady who states that she was herself desirous of filling the vacancy, in case it should occur, and who found Charles the Second, who had been selected as a husband for her, too bashful and retiring to be welcome in the character of a lover. The princess was unfortunate enough to recover, and nothing which her husband could do had power to alienate her affection.

When Condé was compelled to leave his country and join the Spaniards, Cardinal Mazarin, not out of kindness, but from a lively recollection of her former spirit, made her large offers if she would separate her interests from his; but she would not listen to any suggestion of the kind. She determined to follow her husband at all hazards, though the physicians assured her she would not survive the voyage, and she took the sacrament like a dying person. She embarked with her son for Flanders, and, sick and sorrowful as she was, her self-devotion was rewarded by an order from that illustrious petrifaction, requiring her to stop at Valenciennes, instead of joining him at Rocroy. He did not once go near her through the whole winter, and in addition to his other injuries deprived her of the society of her son. Now, it is well known that glory is a sort of moonshine, which can gild many things hateful and disgusting, and make them look beautiful in the darkness of the world; but it is utterly incomprehensible how such treatment as Condé gave his wife, and Napoleon in later times.

measured out to Josephine, can be excused or forgotten by any human being who has the smallest remnant of a heart. Probably, however, this part of the physical and moral system is likely to be so little used, that it is often omitted in the original formation of heroes, and also those whose joy it is to adore them.

The Prince of Condé, after the treaty with Spain was concluded, in which it was stipulated that he should be restored to his estates and honors, came back to his own country more like a conqueror than a returning exile. But the same reasons which gave him favor with the people did not make him acceptable at court, and he found himself without influence, while he was the acknowledged great man of the day. He returned with his son, the princess following them two days after. The court were then in Provence. When Mazarin heard of his approach, he came out to meet him with every demonstration of pleasure, embracing and welcoming home the man whom he devoutly feared and hated. The king, who was less accustomed to dissimulation, received him coldly; Condé took the opportunity to present his son, the young Duke d'Enghien, of whom Mademoiselle records, that there was nothing promising about him. But she may have been influenced by his unfortunately falling asleep while she was conversing with his father; a circumstance which was not flattering to her social power, but which we can easily conceive may have happened to older persons, if the charms of her conversation resembled those of her writings.

It was well for Condé that he had no ambition except in war; for Mazarin was now so firmly established, that he treated the king like a boy, and paid not even the common forms of respect to the queen. He did not permit either of them to exert the least act of authority; and they submitted to his dictation, probably from the idea that no one was so well fitted to govern France as he. But he was not long to enjoy his unrivalled elevation. The excesses of his youth had undermined his constitution, and the work of ruin was finished by the cares and anxieties of later years. Finding that his mortal term was nearly over, he made an exact arrangement of all public affairs, disposing of every thing as if the state was his own. Three days before his death, he held a confidential discourse with Condé, who afterwards discovered that there was not a word of truth in what the dying

man had told him; and having made this characteristic preparation, he left the world, leaving a memory that could not be envied. In the ambition of Richelieu there was something bold and overpowering; but meanness and selfishness overshaded the ability of Mazarin, and the world admired nothing about him but his success, which was owing all the while more to the queen's attachment for him, than to any adroitness or management of his own.

Lord Mahon touches on the subject of the Iron Mask, the mystery of which was first thrown out to the world by Voltaire, and which, like the authorship of Junius, has been a standing subject for ingenious theories, none of which have been established to the full satisfaction of the reading world. Each one who undertakes to say what person the Iron Mask concealed can prove only that it may have been the one whom he supposes. A possibility may be clearly made out; but up to a probability the evidence cannot be made to go. The theory which Lord Mahon adopts has been suggested before. It is, that the unfortunate prisoner was a son of Mazarin and the queen, born after the death of Louis the Thirteenth, and secretly brought up till after the cardinal's death. Louis the Fourteenth became acquainted with his existence, and he resorted to these cruel measures to keep the secret from the world. The difficulty with this solution of the mystery is, that no adequate motive for the concealment appears. As for the queen's reputation, it was well established, such as it was, and the French public were not strict to censure any such iniquities. It is not easy to understand, either, how such a person could be dangerous in any respect which should make it necessary to keep him so sternly bound. Moreover, the severity of his punishment implies that it was inflicted in a spirit of revenge; and we can hardly conceive of any thing which such a person could have done to call down that feeling. Before troubling ourselves with these difficult historical problems, it is best to ascertain the precise authority on which the story of the prisoner and his imprisonment rests; and when we have sifted out the fanciful from the true, we may find much less difficulty in solving what is left of the mystery than we imagine

now.

As Louis the Fourteenth took matters of state entirely into his own hands, and, though he had great respect for the

talent, had no particular confidence in the friendship and faithfulness of Condé, the prince lived in retirement, devoting himself to his son, who does not seem to have rewarded his father's interest with any remarkable promise, and was most eminently deficient in heart. Condé was very desirous to marry him to Mademoiselle, who was immensely rich; and that free-spoken lady, in her Memoirs, treats of the matter without reserve, saying that she felt no disposition to receive the young man's assiduous attentions, because a base mind can never please; but she excused herself to the father on account of the disparity of years. Other writers mention something with respect to the young man's appearance, which may have had some weight with the lady; that he was very little and thin, with a mean countenance, which was redeemed only by the fire and spirit of his eyes. Finding these advances rejected, the prince turned his attention to a daughter of that princess palatine who bore so important a part in the intrigues of the Fronde. Here he was more successful, and the bride had a fortune of more than a million crowns. But she had reason to repent her haste, for, according to St. Simon, she was plain, virtuous, and foolish, either of which qualities, but especially the second, was sufficient to make such a husband despise her; and accordingly, in this respect, he followed the vile example of his father. It does not appear why it should have been so, but the diabolical aversion of the prince to his wife increased after this alliance of his son; perhaps it was to show his youthful hope how so near a connection should be treated. But the young man transcended his teacher; for, not contented with insults, he often abused her with kicks and blows, while his illustrious father aimed all his wounds at his wife's broken and bleeding heart.

It was not long, however, that he could devote himself to this kind of recreation; for Louis the Fourteenth, who was determined, in defiance of nature, to be a great king, or at least to witch the world with the delusion that he was one, undertook to strike, a blow at Spain by way of gaining renown. He chose Turenne to conduct the proposed campaign; but Condé having drawn up a plan for the reduction of Franche Comté, Louvois, who was jealous of Turenne, prevailed on Louis to submit the execution of the plan to Condé. It was soon accomplished with success, and Louis made him governor of the province which he had subdued.