And then unrolled the gorgeous tapestry of the maturer reign of the Grand Monarque,—­that sovereign whom his priests in their liturgy styled “the chief work of the Divine hands,” and of whom Mazarin said, more honestly, that there was material enough in him for four kings and one honest man.  The “Moi-meme” of his boyish resolution became the “L’etat, c’est moi” of his maturer egotism; Spain yielded to France the mastery of the land, as she had already yielded to Holland and England the sea; Turenne fell at Sassbach, Conde sheathed his sword at Chantilly; Bossuet and Bourdaloue, preaching the funeral sermons of these heroes, praised their glories, and forgot, as preachers will, their sins; Vatel committed suicide because his Majesty had not fish enough for breakfast; the Princess Palatine died in a convent, and the Princess Conde in a prison; the fair Sevigne chose the better part, and the fairer Montespan the worse; the lovely La Valliere walked through sin to saintliness, and poor Marie de Mancini through saintliness to sin; Voiture and Benserade and Corneille passed away, and Racine and Moliere reigned in their stead; and Mademoiselle, who had won the first campaigns of her life and lost all the rest, died a weary old woman at sixty-seven.

Thus wrecked and wasted, her opportunity past, her career a disappointment, she leaves us only the passing glimpse of what she was, and the hazy possibility of what she might have been.  Perhaps the defect was, after all, in herself; perhaps the soil was not deep enough to produce anything but a few stray heroisms, bright and transitory;—­perhaps otherwise.  What fascinates us in her is simply her daring, that inborn fire of the blood to which danger is its own exceeding great reward; a quality which always kindles enthusiasm, and justly,—­but which is a thing of temperament, not necessarily joined with any other great qualities, and worthless when it stands alone—­But she had other resources,—­weapons, at least, if not qualities; she had birth, wealth, ambition, decision, pride, perseverance, ingenuity; beauty not slight, though not equalling the superb Longuevilles and Chevreuses of the age; great personal magnetism, more than average cultivation for that period, and unsullied chastity.  Who can say what these things might have ended in, under other circumstances?  We have seen how Mazarin, who read all hearts but the saintly, dreaded the conjunction of herself and Conde; it is scarcely possible to doubt that it would have placed a new line of Bourbons on the throne.  Had she married Louis XIV., she might not have controlled that steadier will, but there would have been two Grand Monarques instead of one; had she accepted Charles II. of England, she might have only increased his despotic tendencies, but she would easily have disposed of the Duchess of Portsmouth; had she won Ferdinand III., Germany might have suffered less by the Peace of Westphalia; had she chosen Alphonso Henry, the House of Braganza would again have been upheld by a woman’s hand.  But she did none of these things, and her only epitaph is that dreary might-have-been.