al arts--were at
the expense of it. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the decorations;
they were finely imagined, and designed by Le Brun. The mausoleum
reached to the top of the dome, adorned with a thousand lamps, and a
variety of figures characteristic of him in whose honor it was
erected. Beneath were four figures of Death, bearing the marks of his
several dignities, as having taken away his honors with his life. One
of them held his helmet, another his ducal coronet, another the
ensigns of his order, another his chancellor's mace. The four sister
arts, painting, music, eloquence and sculpture, were represented in
deep distress, bewailing the loss of their protector. The first
representation was supported by the four virtues, fortitude,
temperance, justice, and religion. Above these, four angels, or genii,
received the soul of the deceased, and seemed preening their purple
wings to bear their precious charge to heaven. The mausoleum was
adorned with a variety of little seraphs who supported an illuminated
shrine, which was fixt to the top of the cupola. Nothing so
magnificent or so well imagined was ever seen; it is Le Brun's
masterpiece. The whole church was adorned with pictures, devices, and
emblems, which all bore some relation to the life, or office of the
chancellor; and some of his noblest actions were represented in
painting. Madame de Verneuil offered to purchase all the decoration at
a great price; but it was unanimously resolved by those who had
contributed to it to adorn a gallery with it, and to consecrate it as
an everlasting monument of their gratitude and magnificence. The
assembly was grand and numerous, but without confusion. I sat next to
Monsieur de Tulle, Madame Colbert and the Duke of Monmouth, who is as
handsome as when we saw him at the _palais royal_. (Let me tell you in
a parenthesis that he is going to the army to join the King.) A young
father of the Oratory came to speak the funeral oration. I desired
Monsieur de Tulle to bid him come down, and to mount the pulpit in his
place; since nothing could sustain the beauty of the spectacle, and
the excellence of the music but the force of his eloquence.

[Footnote 31: From a letter to her daughter, dated Paris, May 6,
1672.]

My child, this young man trembled when he began, and we all trembled
for him. Our ears were at first struck with a provincial accent; he is
of Marseilles, and called Lene. But as he recovered from his
confusion, he bec