de Longueville when that alone
saved her from sharing the imprisonment of her brothers Conde and Conti,--
then fled for her own life, by night, with Rochefoucauld. Mme. de
Longueville herself, pursued afterwards by the royal troops, wished to
embark in a little boat, on a dangerous shore, during a midnight storm so
wild that not a fisherman could at first be found to venture forth; the
beautiful fugitive threatened and implored till they consented; the sailor
who bore her in his arms to the boat let her fall amid the furious surges;
she was dragged senseless to the shore again, and, on the instant of
reviving, demanded to repeat the experiment; but as they utterly refused,
she rode inland beneath the tempest, and travelled for fourteen nights
before she could find another place of embarkation.
Madame de Chevreuse rode with one attendant from Paris to Madrid, fleeing
from Richelieu, remaining day and night on her horse, attracting perilous
admiration by the womanly loveliness which no male attire could obscure.
From Spain she went to England, organizing there the French exiles into a
strength which frightened Richelieu; thence to Holland, to conspire nearer
home; back to Paris, on the minister's death, to form the faction of the
Importants; and when the Duke of Beaufort was imprisoned, Mazarin said,
"Of what use to cut off the arms while the head remains?" Ten years from
her first perilous escape, she made a second, dashed through La Vendee,
embarked at St.
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