ad it not been for the following accident.

The Duc de Retz, head of our family, broke at that time, by the King's
order, the marriage treaty concluded some years before between the Duc de
Mercoeur--[Louis, Duc de Mercoeur, since Cardinal de Vendome, father of
the Duc de Vendome, and Grand Prior, died 1669.]--and his daughter, and
next day came to my father and agreeably surprised him by telling him he
was resolved to give her to his cousin to reunite the family.

As I knew she had a sister worth above 80,000 livres a year, I, that very
instant, thought of a double match. I had no hopes they would think of
me, knowing how things stood, so I was resolved to provide for myself.

Having got a hint that my father did not intend to carry me to the
wedding, as, foreseeing, it may be, what happened, I pretended to be
better pleased with my profession, to be touched by what my father had so
often laid before me on that subject, and I acted my part so well that
they believed I was quite another man.

My father resolved to carry me into Brittany, for the reason that I had
shown no inclination that way. We found Mademoiselle de Retz at
Beaupreau, in Anjou. I looked on the eldest only as my sister, but
immediately considered Mademoiselle de Scepaux (so the youngest was
called) as my mistress.

I thought her very handsome, her complexion the most charming in the
world, lilies and roses in abundance, admirable eyes, a very pretty
mouth, and what she wanted in stature was abundantly made up by the
prospect of 80,000 livres a year and of the Duchy of Beaupreau, and by a
thousand chimeras which I formed on these real foundations.

I played my game nicely from the beginning, and acted the ecclesiastic
and the devotee both in the journey and during my stay there;
nevertheless, I paid my sighs to the fair one,--she perceived it. I spoke
at last, and she heard me, but not with that complacency which I could
have wished.

But observing she had a great kindness for an old chambermaid, sister to
one of my monks of Buzai, I did all I could to gain her, and by the means
of a hundred pistoles down, and vast promises, I succeeded. She made her
mistress believe that she was designed for a nunnery, and I, for my part,
told her that I was doomed to nothing less than a monastery. She could
not endure her sister, because she was her father's darling, and I was
not overfond of my brother,--[Pierre de Gondi, Duc de Retz, who died in
1676.]--f