ly be. This portrait she kept prominently hung in her
parlor as long as she lived. In one of his letters to her, he writes:
"My thought will always go out to seek you: my heart will always feel
the worth of yours." The memory of this first great friend continued
to hover over her life to the end. In her last days, generously
offended by what she thought the unjust strokes in the portraiture of
De Maistre, presented by Lamartine in his "Confidences," she took up
her pen in refutation, and wielded it with telling effect. This
eloquent vindication of her old friend, when he had been dead nearly
forty years, was one of her latest acts, and truly characteristic of
her tenacious fidelity of affection.

The enthusiasm shown by the Count de Maistre for the Roman Catholic
Church awakened a deep interest in Madame Swetchine. This interest
was greatly enhanced by the admirable examples of piety and charity
set before her in the lives of several of the French exiles in St.
Petersburg, with whom she had contracted friendships. Especially was
she impressed and attracted by the amiable virtues of the Princess de
Tarente, the devout elevation of her character, and the triumphant
sanctity of her death. Madame Swetchine at length resolved to make a
deliberate examination of the claims of the Roman Church, and to come
to a settled conclusion. Providing herself with an appropriate
library, acompanied only by her adopted daughter Nadine, in the
summer of 1815, she withdrew to a lonely and picturesque estate,
situated on the borders of the Gulf of Finland. Here, through the
days and nights of six months, she plunged into the most laborious
researches, historical and argumentative. The result was, that she
became convinced of the apostolic authority of the Roman primacy, and
avowed herself a Catholic. Soon after this conversion, the Jesuits
were ordered to leave Russia. Indignant at an order which she
regarded as unjust, she openly identified herself with the cause of
these proscribed missionaries. The machinations of the political
enemies of General Swetchine had made his situation disagreeable to
him; and, when he saw those enemies gaining credit, his pride took
offence, and he determined to leave the country. Madame Swetchine's
passion for travel and observation combined with her new religious
faith to make this removal less unwelcome than it would otherwise
have been.

The close of the year 1816 found her established in Paris, where,
w