Political women - 1875 Author:Elizabeth Stone Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE IMPORTANTS. It is necessary, at this juncture, to have a just idea of the general position of political affairs in France, as well as of t... more »he attitude of the faction known as the Importants, who were then most active in opposing the government of Maza- rin, in order to understand clearly the gravity of an incident which otherwise in itself might seem to be of little consequence. La Rochefoucauld, the historian of that party, has made us tolerably familiar with the men who composed it. They were a band of eccentric and mischievous spirits, bold of heart, ready of hand, and of boundless fidelity to one another. Professing to hold the most outrageous maxims, incessantly invoking Brutus and old Rome, and intermingling gallant with political intrigues, they suffered themselves to be hurried beyond the bounds of reason through a Quixotic idea of always pleasing the ladies. They had all been more or less fellow-sufferers with Anne of Austria during the period of her affliction and persecution by Richelieu, and from the commencement of her Regency, these returning exiles and liberated prisoners had been gathering round her until at last, formed into a faction, they gave themselves out as the Queen's party, and by adopting a high-flown, turgid, and mysterious style of phraseology, and assuming bombastic and braggart airs of authority, coupledwith an affectation of capacity and profundity, obtained for themselves from the wits of the Court and city the nickname of The Importants, under which they figured until absorbed a few years later in the more general and popular designation of Frondeurs. Their favourite chief was tne Duke de Beaufort, of whom we have already spoken as possessing very nearly the same characteristics as the rest—at once artificial and extravagan...« less