As he presented
himself at the court of the regency, over which Anne of Austria
nominally presided, no youth there was more distinguished for his
elegance or for the fame of his exploits during the wars of the Fronde
than this youthful scion of an illustrious house. Endowed by nature with
a pleasing countenance, and, what was far more important in that
fastidious region, an air of dignity, he displayed wonderful
contradictions in his character and bearing. He had, says Madame de
Maintenon, '_beaucoup d'esprit, et peu de savoir_;' an expressive
phrase. 'He was,' she adds, 'pliant in nature, intriguing, and
cautious;' nevertheless she never, she declares, possessed a more steady
friend, nor one more confiding and better adapted to advise. Brave as he
was, he held personal valour, or affected to do so, in light estimation.
His ambition was to rule others. Lively in conversation, though
naturally pensive, he assembled around him all that Paris or Versailles
could present of wit and intellect.
The old Hotel de Rochefoucault, in the Rue de Seine, in the Faubourg St.
Germain, in Paris, still grandly recalls the assemblies in which Racine,
Boileau, Madame de Sevigne, the La Fayettes, and the famous Duchesse de
Longueville, used to assemble.
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