Word: rochefoucaulds
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...understandably failed to record concerned Count de Lauzun who hid under the bed of Mme. de Montespan, mistress to Louis XIV, and later mimicked her conversation back to her word for word. Mademoiselle did describe the bloodiest battle of the Fronde, when she saw the Duke de la Rochefoucauld staggering toward her, "having received a musket-ball through his eyes and nose, so that his eyes seemed to be falling out, and he kept blowing the blood away as though he feared one of his eyes might fall into his mouth...
...Like La Rochefoucauld, Mademoiselle was destined to die in bed. But even death did not spare her a final characteristic misadventure. Her body lay in state for several days. Gossipist Saint-Simon describes the "most ridiculous thing" that then happened: "In mid-ceremony, the urn containing the entrails exploded with a frightful noise and a sudden insufferable stink. Instantly, there were the ladies, some of them swooning with horror, others taking flight ... the monks ... in the act of singing psalms, all made for the doors ... the chaos was extreme...
...which "sophistication" may mean anything from talking like Noel Coward to owning a Diners' Club card, the plumed figure of La Rochefoucauld towers at an impressive altitude of worldliness. The eldest son (born in 1613) of an ancient and doughty French clan, François de la Rochefoucauld followed with vigor the customs of the royal court, which is to say he carried on a succession of tumultuous affairs with titled ladies, tangled in the incessant intrigues and wars of 17th century France, recovered twice from severe wounds, and at 66 died, as befitted a gentleman, of the gout...
Self-interest, in La Rochefoucauld's view, was clearly the carrot that made men trot, as money was later singled out by Balzac, and sex by Freud. Yet, in obsessively concentrating on one human trait, as Author-Critic Louis Kronenberger points out in his new translation of the Maxims (Random House; $3.50), La Rochefoucauld narrowed his vision. Indeed, some of the maxims are strangely naive and platitudinous, suggesting once again that cynicism is sentimentality in reverse-and that, perhaps, the sheltered courtier could have learned from the crude common sense of the peasant. Yet at his best, as Kronenberger...
...permanent 75." She reads a novel a day, still manages to take a personal interest in handsome young writers. Madame Simone is haughtily and heartily despised by the "Blue" faction (named for the hue of its blood), led by a scientist, mathematician and relative youngster, the Duchesse de la Rochefoucauld, 62. An oldtime suffragette and notorious pincher of sous (says a fellow juror: "She dresses in a splendid mink coat lined with rayon"), the Duchesse blazed in protest when her arch-antagonist grandly announced that she would accept no other Femina choice for 1957 than Le Carre four des Solitudes...