ce or anywhere
else. Not at all: three of the young ladies were kept at home, to be
married; the other five were at once disposed of, as they passed the
unconscious age of infancy, in convents. Saint-Simon was, however,
disappointed. He offered, indeed; first for the eldest, who was not then
fifteen years old; and finding that she had a vocation for a conventual
life, went on to the third, and was going through the whole family, when
he was convinced that his suit was impossible. The eldest daughter
happened to be a disciple of Fenelon's, and was on the very eve of being
vowed to heaven.

Saint-Simon went off to La Trappe, to console himself for his
disappointment. There had been an old intimacy between Monsieur La
Trappe and the father of Saint-Simon; and this friendship had induced
him to buy an estate close to the ancient abbey where La Trappe still
existed. The friendship became hereditary; and Saint-Simon, though still
a youth, revered and loved the penitent recluse of _Ferte au Vidame_, of
which Lamartine has written so grand and so poetical a description.

Let us hasten over his marriage with Mademoiselle de Lorges, who proved
a good wife. It was this time a grandmother, the Marechale de Lorges,
who managed the treaty; and Saint-Simon became the happy husband of an
innocent blonde, with a majestic air, though only fifteen years of age.
Let us hasten on, passing over his presents; his six hundred louis,
given in a corbeille full of what he styles 'gallantries;' his mother's
donation of jewellery; the midnight mass, by which he was linked to the
child who scarcely knew him; let us lay all that aside, and turn to his
court life.

At this juncture Louis XIV., who had hitherto dressed with great
simplicity, indicated that he desired his court should appear in all
possible magnificence. Instantly the shops were emptied. Even gold and
silver appeared scarcely rich enough. Louis himself planned many of the
dresses for any public occasion. Afterwards he repented of the extent to
which he had permitted magnificence to go, but it was then impossible to
check the excess.

Versailles, henceforth in all its grandeur, contains an apartment which
is called, from its situation, and the opportunities it presents of
looking down upon the actors of the scene around, _L'OEil de Boeuf_.
The revelations of the OEil de Boeuf, during the reign of Louis XV.,
form one of the most amazing pictures of wickedness, venality, power
misappl