h as the copy-book would hold; and I got
through, I know not how far. If he had gone on with the nymphs in the
grotto, I never should have been tired of him; but he quite forgot his
own story, and left them at once; in a hurry (I suppose) to set out
upon his mission to Saintonge in the _pays de d'Aunis_, where the king
has promised him a famous _heretic hunt_. He is, I do assure you, a
wonderful creature: he understands so much Latin and Greek, and knows
all the tricks of the sorceresses. Yet you keep him under.

_Bossuet._ Mademoiselle, if you really have anything to confess, and
if you desire that I should have the honour of absolving you, it would
be better to proceed in it, than to oppress me with unmerited eulogies
on my humble labours.

_Fontanges._ You must first direct me, monseigneur: I have nothing
particular. The king assures me there is no harm whatever in his love
toward me.

_Bossuet._ That depends on your thoughts at the moment. If you
abstract the mind from the body, and turn your heart toward Heaven----

_Fontanges._ O monseigneur, I always did so--every time but once--you
quite make me blush. Let us converse about something else, or I shall
grow too serious, just as you made me the other day at the funeral
sermon. And now let me tell you, my lord, you compose such pretty
funeral sermons, I hope I shall have the pleasure of hearing you
preach mine.

_Bossuet._ Rather let us hope, mademoiselle, that the hour is yet far
distant when so melancholy a service will be performed for you. May he
who is unborn be the sad announcer of your departure hence![2] May he
indicate to those around him many virtues not perhaps yet full-blown
in you, and point triumphantly to many faults and foibles checked by
you in their early growth, and lying dead on the open road, you shall
have left behind you! To me the painful duty will, I trust, be
spared: I am advanced in age; you are a child.

_Fontanges._ Oh, no! I am seventeen.

_Bossuet._ I should have supposed you younger by two years at least.
But do you collect nothing from your own reflection, which raises so
many in my breast? You think it possible that I, aged as I am, may
preach a sermon at your funeral. We say that our days are few; and
saying it, we say too much. Marie-Angelique, we have but one: the past
are not ours, and who can promise us the future? This in which we live
is ours only while we live in it; the next moment may strike it off
from us; the ne