THE GREAT CONDÉ AND THE PERIOD OF THE FRONDE. CHAPTER I. AMIDST the majestic solitudes and the sylvan pleasures of her delightful retreat, Anne of Austria found grateful repose from the fierce strife in which the preceding twelve months of her Regency had been passed. The Court was joyous and brilliant; the beauty, accomplishments, and modest graces of Mazarin's eldest nieces, Laura Mancini and the Countess Martinozzi, who appeared for the first time as members of the Queen's circle, brightened it with charms which owed nothing of their lustre to meretricious art. The amnesty stipulated in the treaty of Ruel, by re-opening France to illustrious exiles of the high VOL. II. B |