Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays

---

[183] Holland,the King of Portugal, the Prince of Denmark, the Elector of Bavaria, the Duke of Savoy, Conde's son, and Conde himself. For the last of these alone she seems to have felt any real affection. Their tie was more than cousinly; the same heroic blood of the early Bourbons was in them, they were trained by the same precocious successes, they were only six years apart in age, and they began with that hearty mutual aversion which is so often the parent of love, in impulsive natures. Their flirtation was platonic, but chronic; and whenever poor, heroic, desolate Clemence de Maille was more ill than usual, these cousins were walking side by side in the Tuileries gardens, and dreaming, almost in silence, of what might be, while Mazarin shuddered at the thought of mating two such eagles together. So passed her life, and at last, like many a match-making lady, she baffled all the gossips, and left them all in laughter when her choice was made.

The tale stands embalmed forever in the famous letter of Madame de Sevigne to her cousin, M. de Coulanges, written on Monday, December 15,.1670. It can never be translated too often, so let us risk it again,

“I have now to announce to you the most astonishing circumstance, the most surprising, most marvellous, most triumphant, most bewildering, most unheard-of, most singular, most extraordinary, most incredible, most unexpected, most grand, most trivial, most rare, most common, most notorious, most secret (till to-day), most brilliant, most desirable; indeed, a thing to which past ages afford but one parallel, and that a poor one; a thing which we can scarcely believe at Paris; how can it be believed at Lyons? a thing which excites the compassion of all the world, and the delight of Madame ”