On the 16th of March, 1680, after the closest and longest of intimacies, she had lost her best friend, the Duke of La Rochefoucauld.

Carried away in his youth by party strife and an ardent passion for Madame de Longueville, he had at a later period sought refuge in the friendship of Madame de La Fayette.

"When women have well-formed minds," he would say, "I like their conversation better than that of men; you find with them a certain gentleness which is not met with amongst us, and it seems to me, besides, that they express themselves with greater clearness, and that they give a more pleasant turn to the things they say." A meddler and intriguer during the Fronde, sceptical and bitter in his _Maximes,_ the Duke of La Rochefoucauld was amiable and kindly in his private life.

Factions and the court had taught him a great deal about human nature; he had seen it and judged of it from its bad side.

Witty, shrewd, and often profound, he was too severe to be just.