_Fontanges._ You may do anything with me but convert me: you must not
do that; I am a Catholic born. M. de Turenne and Mademoiselle de Duras
were heretics: you did right there. The king told the chancellor that
he prepared them, that the business was arranged for you, and that you
had nothing to do but get ready the arguments and responses, which you
did gallantly--did not you? And yet Mademoiselle de Duras was very
awkward for a long while afterwards in crossing herself, and was once
remarked to beat her breast in the litany with the points of two
fingers at a time, when every one is taught to use only the second,
whether it has a ring upon it or not. I am sorry she did so; for
people might think her insincere in her conversion, and pretend that
she kept a finger for each religion.

_Bossuet._ It would be as uncharitable to doubt the conviction of
Mademoiselle de Duras as that of M. le Marechal.

_Fontanges._ I have heard some fine verses, I can assure you,
monseigneur, in which you are called the conqueror of Turenne. I
should like to have been his conqueror myself, he was so great a man.
I understand that you have lately done a much more difficult thing.

_Bossuet._ To what do you refer, mademoiselle?

_Fontanges._ That you have overcome quietism. Now, in the name of
wonder, how could you manage that?

_Bossuet._ By the grace of God.

_Fontanges._ Yes, indeed; but never until now did God give any
preacher so much of His grace as to subdue this pest.

_Bossuet._ It has appeared among us but lately.

_Fontanges._ Oh, dear me! I have always been subject to it dreadfully,
from a child.

_Bossuet._ Really! I never heard so.

_Fontanges._ I checked myself as well as I could, although they
constantly told me I looked well in it.

_Bossuet._ In what, mademoiselle?

_Fontanges._ In quietism; that is, when I fell asleep at sermon time.
I am ashamed that such a learned and pious man as M. de Fenelon should
incline to it,[1] as they say he does.

_Bossuet._ Mademoiselle, you quite mistake the matter.

_Fontanges._ Is not then M. de Fenelon thought a very pious and
learned person?

_Bossuet._ And justly.

_Fontanges._ I have read a great way in a romance he has begun, about
a knight-errant in search of a father. The king says there are many
such about his court; but I never saw them nor heard of them before.
The Marchioness de la Motte, his relative, brought it to me, written
out in a charming hand, as muc