outh was all sweetness;
and his noble forehead, the whiteness of which was set off by thick dark
eyebrows, was expressive of his great intelligence, until a wen grew
between his eyebrows, and so changed all the expression of his face that
the Duchess of Mazarin used to call him the 'Old Satyr.' St. Evremond
was also Norman in other respects: he called himself a thorough Roman
Catholic, yet he despised the superstitions of his church, and prepared
himself for death without them. When asked by an ecclesiastic sent
expressly from the court of Florence to attend his death-bed, if he
'would be reconciled,' he answered, 'With all my heart; I would fain be
reconciled to my stomach, which no longer performs its usual
functions.' And his talk, we are told, during the fortnight that
preceded his death, was not regret for a life we should, in seriousness,
call misspent, but because partridges and pheasants no longer suited his
condition, and he was obliged to be reduced to boiled meats. No one,
however, could tell what might also be passing in his heart. We cannot
always judge of a life, any more than of a drama, by its last scene; but
this is certain, that in an age of blasphemy St. Evremond could not
endure to hear religion insulted by ridicule. 'Common decency,' said
this man of the world, 'and a due regard to our fellow-creatures, would
not permit it.' He did not, it seems, refer his displeasure to a higher
source--to the presence of the Omniscient,--who claims from us all not
alone the tribute of our poor frail hearts in serious moments, but the
deep reverence of every thought in the hours of careless pleasure.

It was now St. Evremond who taught De Grammont to collect around him the
wits of that court, so rich in attractions, so poor in honour and
morality. The object of St. Evremond's devotion, though he had, at the
aera of the Restoration, passed his fiftieth year, was Hortense Mancini,
once the richest heiress, and still the most beautiful woman in Europe,
and a niece, on her mother's side, of Cardinal Mazarin. Hortense had
been educated, after the age of six, in France. She was Italian in her
accomplishments, in her reckless, wild disposition, opposed to that of
the French, who are generally calculating and wary, even in their vices:
she was Italian in the style of her surpassing beauty, and French to the
core in her principles. Hortense, at the age of thirteen, had been
married to Armand Duc de Meilleraye and Mayenne, wh