or of the neighbouring hamlet felt pity for this poor child, who
was sometimes tormented by her companions on account of her colour. The
good cure even went so far as to declare, one day when there was a
sermon, that the Virgin Mary, if one was to believe respectable books,
was black from head to foot, which did not prevent her from being most
beautiful in the sight of God and of men.

This good cure taught the gentle little orphan to read and pray. He often
came to her farm to visit her, and probably he knew her birth; he was in
advanced age, and he died. Then Opportune was placed with the
Augustinian ladies of Meaux, where Bossuet charged himself with the task
of instructing her well in religion and of making her take the veil.

The lot of this young victim of pride and vain prejudices touched me in
spite of myself, and often I made a firm resolution to take her away from
her oppressors and adopt her in spite of everybody. The poor Queen,
forgetting our rivalry, had taken all my children into her affections.
Why should not I have shown a just recognition by protecting an innocent
little creature animated with her breath, life, and blood,--a child whom
she would have loved, I do not doubt, if she had been permitted to see
and recognise her? This idea grew so fixed in my mind, that I resolved
to see Opportune and do her some good, if I were able.

The interest of my position had led me once to assure myself of the
neighbourhood of the King by certain little measures, not of curiosity
but of surveillance. I had put with M. Bontems a young man of
intelligence and devotion, who, without passing due limits, kept me
informed of many things which it is as well to know.

When I knew, without any doubt, the new abiding-place of Opportune, I
secretly sent to the Augustinians of Meaux the young and intelligent
sister of my woman of the bedchamber, who presented herself as an
aspirant for the novitiate. They were ignorant in the house of the
relations of Mademoiselle Albanier with her sister Leontine Osselin, so
that they wrote to each other, but by means of a cipher, and under seal,
addressing their missives to a relative.

Albanier lost no time in informing us that the little Opportune had begun
to give her her confidence, and that the nuns took it in very good part,
believing them both equally called to take the veil in their convent.
Opportune knew, though in a somewhat vague way, to what great personage
she owed her