ken back to the Abbey
of Notre Dame, the prelate wrote to M. Bontems, that is to say, to the
real father, and poor Opportune was taken to Moret, a convent of
Benedictines, in the forest of Fontainebleau. There they took the course
of lavishing care, and kindness, and attentions on her. But as her
destiny, written in her cradle, was an irrevocable sentence, she was
finally made to take the veil, which suited her admirably, and which she
wears with an infinite despair.

I disguised myself one day as a lady suitor who sought a lodging in the
house. I established myself there for a week, under the name of the
Comtesse de Clagny, and I saw, with my own eyes, a King's daughter
reduced to singing matins. Her air of nobility and dignity struck me
with admiration and moved me to tears. I thought of her four sisters,
dead at such an early age, and deplored the cruelty of Fate, which had
spared her in her childhood to kill her slowly and by degrees.

I would have accosted her in the gardens, and insinuated myself into her
confidence, but the danger of these interviews, both for her and me,
restrained what had been an ill-judged kindness. We should both have
gone too far, and the monarch would have been able to think that I was
opposing him out of revenge, and to give him pain.

This consideration came and crushed all my projects of compassion and
kindness. There are situations in life where we are condemned to see
evil done in all liberty, without being able to call for succour or
complain.

CHAPTER XLIV.

The Aristocratic Republic of Genoa Offends the King.--Its
Punishment.--Reception of the Doge at Paris and Versailles.

M. de Louvois--by nature, as I have said, hard and despotic--was quite
satisfied to gain the same reputation for the King, in order to cover his
own violence and rigour beneath the authority of the monarch.

The King, I admit, did not like to be contradicted or opposed. He became
irritated if one was unfortunate enough to do so; but I know from long
experience that he readily accepted a good excuse, and by inclination
liked neither to punish nor blame. The Marquis de Louvois was
unceasingly occupied in exciting him against one Power and then another,
and his policy was to keep the prince in constant alarm of distrust in
order to perpetuate wars and dissensions. This order of things pleased
that minister, who dreaded intervals of calm and peace, when the King
came to examine expenses and