Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/71

SAINT-AMANT 55 the troubles of the Fronde he took the part of Anne of Austria, conducted the young king Louis XIV. into Normandy, and maintained his authority there, in despite of the Duchess de Longueville. He forced the Prince de Cond^ to raise the siege of Cognac in 165 1, and kept Guienne quiet. Then he threw up his command, finding his services ill rewarded, and stung by the epigram of Conde, thus translated by Mr. Besant — " That soldier fat and short, Renowned in story, The noble Count d'Harcourt, Brimful of glory, Who raised Cazal and took Turin, Is bailiflf now to Mazarin." At the head of foreign troops he invaded Alsace and took several towns, but had to retire, beaten by the Duke de la Fert6. He then made his peace with the court, and was appointed Governor of Anjou. He died of apoplexy, in the abbey of Royaumont. He was generous and great-hearted as he was brave. When our poet went with him, in 1637, his secre- tary was Faret. (Why does Mr. Besant throughout write him Fwret? Always in the French I find him Faret, rhyming as inevitably to cabaret as la gloire to la victoire, love to dove, or quaffed to laughed.) Duty apart, the three were inseparable, and etiquette was banished. Among themselves, the Comte d'Harcourt was the Round, Saint-Amant the Fat, and Faret the Old. Nor was this familiar intimacy a secret to any one. The poet, in his preface to the piece in which he describes the Passage of Gibraltar, tells us that he composed it " beneath the stars which looked on