she became with child by
him. After some months the Abbess pleaded illness, left the convent, and
set out for the waters, as she said. Putting off her journey too long,
she was obliged to stop a night at Fontainebleau; and in consequence of
the Court being there, could find no accommodation, except in a wretched
little inn already full of company. She had delayed so long that the
pangs of labour seized her in the night, and the cries she uttered
brought all the house to her assistance. She was delivered of a child
then and there; and the next morning this fact was the talk of the town.

The Duc de Saint Aignan, one of the first of the courtiers who learned
it, went straight to the King, who was brisk and free enough in those
days, and related to him what had occurred; the King laughed heartily at
the poor Abbess, who, while trying to hide her shame, had come into the
very midst of the Court. Nobody knew then that her abbey was only four
leagues distant, but everybody learned it soon, and the Duc de Saint
Aignan among the first.

When he returned to his house, he found long faces on every side. His
servants made signs one to another, but nobody said a word. He perceived
this, and asked what was the matter; but, for some time, no one dared to
reply. At last a valet-de-chambre grew bold enough to say to Saint
Aignan, that the Abbess, whose adventure had afforded so much mirth, was
his own daughter; and that, after he had gone to the King, she had sent
for assistance, in order to get out of the place where she was staying.

It was now the Duke's turn to be confused. After having made the King
and all the Court laugh at this adventure, he became himself the
laughing-stock of everybody. He bore the affair as well as he could;
carried away the Abbess and her baggage; and, as the scandal was public,
made her send in her resignation and hide herself in another convent,
where she lived more than forty years.

That worthy man, Saint-Herem, died this year at his house in Auvergne, to
which he had retired. Everybody liked him; and M. de Rochefoucauld had
reproached the King for not making him Chevalier of the Order. The King
had confounded him with Courtine, his brother-in-law, for they had
married two sisters; but when put right had not given the favour.

Madame de Saint-Herem was the most singular creature in the world, not
only in face but in manners. She half boiled her thigh one day in the
Seine, near Fontaine