(Francis, duke de la) prince of Marsillac, governor of Poitou, was the son of Francis, the first duke of Rochefoucault, and distinguished himself on several occasions by his courage and prudence. He wrote two excellent works; the one a book of Maxims, which M. de Voltaire says has contributed more than any thing else to form the taste of the French nation; and the other, Memoirs of the Regency of Queen Anne of Austria. It was partly at the instigation of the beautiful duchess de Longueville, that the duke de Rochefoucault engaged in the civil wars, in which he signalized himself particularly at the battle of St Antoine. Beholding one day a portrait of this lady, he wrote underneath it those two lines from the tragedy of Alcyoneus:

"Pour meriter ton coeur, pour plaire a tes beaux yeux, J'ai fait la guerre aux rois, je l'aimois fait aux dieux."

Which may be thus rendered in English:

"To gain her heart, and please her sparkling eyes, I've ward'd with kings, and would have brav'd the skies."

The author of the maxims was not a member of the French academy. The necessity of making a public speech the day of his reception, was the only cause that he did not claim admittance. This nobleman, with all the courage he had displayed upon various critical occasions, and with his superiority of birth and understanding over the common run of men, did not think himself capable of facing an audience, to utter only four lines in public, without being out of countenance. He died at Paris in 1680, aged 68.