François, Due de la, Prince of Marsillac, governor of Poitou, was born in 1613. He was the son of Francis, the first Duke of Rochefoucauld, and was distinguished equally by his courage and his wit. These shining qualities endeared him to all the nobility at court, who were ambitious of decorating themselves at once with the laurels of Mars and of Apollo. He wrote two excellent works: the one a book of Maxims, which Voltaire says has contributed more than anything else to form the taste of the French nation; and the other, Memoires de la Regence d'Anne d'Autriche. It was partly at the instigation of the beautiful Duchess de Longueville, to whom he had long been attached, that the Due de Rochefoucauld engaged in the civil war, in which he signalized himself, particularly at the battle of St Antoine. After the civil wars were ended, he thought of nothing but enjoying the calm pleasure of friendship and literature. His house became the rendezvous of every person of genius in Paris and Versailles. Racine, Boileau, Savigné, and Lafayette found in his conversation charms which they sought for in vain elsewhere. He was not, however, with all his elegance and genius, a member of the French Academy. The necessity of making a public speech on 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 sixty-eight, leaving behind him a character which has been variously drawn by those who during his life were proud of his friendship.

Rochefoucauld's Memoirs of the Regency of Queen Anne of Austria are written with much elegance and spirit, displaying a faithful picture of that stormy time, in which the painter was himself one of the leading actors. In his Reflections and Maxims he lays it down as an absolute rule, that all the actions of men are under the guidance of self-love or of self-interest. This self-love, vanity, or pride, he maintains to be the poison with which universal humanity is tainted, and which it is impossible for man to remove by all the efforts of his reason. Such being Rochefoucauld's view of human nature, it need not be wondered at that the tone of his book does not rise, in any case, beyond the grovelling speculation with which he sets out. This theory perpetually clings to it; and despite its very great claims upon our attention as a book written with singular elegance, it will be more or less regarded by all thinking men more as a satire upon human nature, than as a book calculated to make men better. A very good and very perfect edition of the Maxims is that of Gabriel Brotier, Paris, 1789; there is likewise a more recent one by Aimé Martin, 1822. The Oeuvres of Rochefoucauld were published in 1818, with a notice of his life and works by Depping; and another edition in 1825, with a biographical and literary notice by his relation the Count Gaetan de la Rochefoucauld. The Maxims have been frequently translated into English.