etirement; where I sometimes had the pleasure of seeing my family and
a few particular friends. Certain young ladies of St. Cyr, having
informed Mad. Maintenon, that they found in my conversation something
which attracted them to God, she encouraged me to continue my
instructions to them. By the fine change in some of them with whom
before she had not been well pleased, she found she had no reason to
repent of it. She then treated me with much respect; and for three
years after, while this lasted, I received from her every mark of
esteem and confidence. But that very thing afterward drew on me the
most severe persecution. The free entrance I had into the house, and
the confidence which some young ladies of the Court, distinguished for
their rank and piety, placed in me, gave no small uneasines to the
people who had persecuted me. The directors took umbrage at it, and
under pretext of the troubles I had some years before, they engaged the
Bishop of Chartres, Superior of St. Cyr, to present to Mad. Maintenon
that, by my particular conduct, I troubled the order of the house; that
the young women in it were so attached to me, and to what I said to
them, that they no longer hearkened to their superiors. I then went no
more to St. Cyr. I answered the young ladies who wrote to me, only by
letters unsealed, which passed through the hands of Mad. Maintenon.

Soon after I fell sick. The physicians, after trying in vain the usual
method of cure, ordered me to repair to the waters of Bourbon. My
servant had been induced to give me some poison. After taking it, I
suffered such exquisite pains that, without speedy succor, I should
have died in a few hours. The man immediately ran away, and I have
never seen him since. When I was at Bourbon, the waters which I threw
up burned like spirits of wine. I had no thought of being poisoned,
till the physicians of Bourbon assured me of it. The waters had but
little effect. I suffered from it for above seven years.

God kept me in such a disposition of sacrifice, that I was quite
resigned to suffer everything, and to receive from His hand all that
might befall me, since for me to offer in any way to vindicate myself,
would be only beating the air. When the Lord is willing to make any one
suffer, He permits even the most virtuous people to be readily blinded
toward them; and I may confess that the persecution of the wicked is
but little, when compared with that of the servants of the church,
de