ied, genius polluted, that was ever drawn. No one that reads that
infamous book can wonder at the revolution of 1789. Let us conceive
Saint-Simon to have taken his stand here, in this region, pure in the
time of Louis XIV., comparatively, and note we down his comments on men
and women.

He has journeyed up to court from La Trappe, which has fallen into
confusion and quarrels, to which the most saintly precincts are
peculiarly liable.

The history of Mademoiselle de la Valliere was not, as he tells us, of
his time. He hears of her death, and so indeed does the king, with
emotion. She expired in 1710, in the Rue St. Jacques, at the Carmelite
convent, where, though she was in the heart of Paris, her seclusion from
the world had long been complete. Amongst the nuns of the convent none
was so humble, so penitent, so chastened as this once lovely Louise de
la Valliere, now, during a weary term of thirty-five years, 'Marie de la
Misericorde.' She had fled from the scene of her fall at one-and-thirty
years of age. Twice had she taken refuge among the 'blameless vestals,'
whom she envied as the broken-spirited envy the passive. First, she
escaped from the torture of witnessing the king's passion for Madame de
Montespan, by hiding herself among the Benedictine sisters at St. Cloud.
Thence the king fetched her in person, threatening to order the cloister
to be burnt. Next, Lauzun, by the command of Louis, sought her, and
brought her _avec main forte_. The next time she fled no more; but took
a public farewell of all she had too fondly loved, and throwing herself
at the feet of the queen, humbly entreated her pardon. Never since that
voluntary sepulture had she ceased, during those long and weary years,
to lament--as the heart-stricken can alone lament--her sins. In deep
contrition she learned the death of her son by the king, and bent her
head meekly beneath the chastisement.

Three years before her death the triumphant Athenee de Montespan had
breathed her last at Bourbon. If Louis XIV. had nothing else to repent
of, the remorse of these two women ought to have wrung his heart.
Athenee de Montespan was a youthful, innocent beauty, fresh from the
seclusion of provincial life, when she attracted the blighting regards
of royalty. A _fete_ was to be given; she saw, she heard that she was
its object. She entreated her husband to take her back to his estate in
Guyenne, and to leave her there till the king had forgotten her. Her
husb