e had one son, Claude de la Guiche, and one daughter,
who married the Marquis de Bouille. His wife dying, he married again
with Suzanne des Epaules, who had also been previously married,
being the widow of the Count de Longaunay, by whom she had Suzanne de
Longaunay.

The marshal and his wife, Suzanne des Epaules, for the mutual benefit of
their children by first nuptials, determined to marry them, thus sealing
their own union with a double tie. Claude de Guiche, the marshal's son,
married Suzanne de Longaunay.

This alliance was much to the distaste of the Marchioness de Bouille,
the marshal's daughter, who found herself separated from her stepmother,
and married to a man who, it was said, gave her great cause for
complaint, the greatest being his threescore years and ten.

The contract of marriage between Claude de la Guiche and Suzanne de
Longaunay was executed at Rouen on the 17th of February 1619; but the
tender age of the bridegroom, who was then but eighteen, was the cause
of his taking a tour in Italy, whence he returned after two years. The
marriage was a very happy one but for one circumstance--it produced no
issue. The countess could not endure a barrenness which threatened the
end of a great name, the extinction of a noble race. She made vows,
pilgrimages; she consulted doctors and quacks; but to no purpose.

The Marshal de Saint-Geran died on the 10th of December 1632, having the
mortification of having seen no descending issue from the marriage of
his son. The latter, now Count de Saint-Geran, succeeded his father in
the government of the Bourbonnais, and was named Chevalier of the King's
Orders.

Meanwhile the Marchioness de Bouille quarrelled with her old husband the
marquis, separated from him after a scandalous divorce, and came to
live at the chateau of Saint-Geran, quite at ease as to her brother's
marriage, seeing that in default of heirs all his property would revert
to her.

Such was the state of affairs when the Marquis de Saint-Maixent
arrived at the chateau. He was young, handsome, very cunning, and very
successful with women; he even made a conquest of the dowager Countess
de Saint-Geran, who lived there with her children. He soon plainly saw
that he might easily enter into the most intimate relations with the
Marchioness de Bouille.

The Marquis de Saint-Maixent's own fortune was much impaired by his
extravagance and by the exactions of the law, or rather, in plain words,
he had lost