s now almost within my ken, which, together with other prospects of
good benefices, made me resolve not to fling off the cassock but upon
honourable terms and valuable considerations; but having nothing yet
within my view that I could be sure of, I resolved to distinguish myself
in my own profession by all the methods I could. I retired from the
world, studied very hard, saw but very few men, and had no more
correspondence with any of the female sex, except Madame de -------.

The devil had appeared to the Princesse de Guemenee just a fortnight
before this adventure happened, and was often raised by the conjurations
of M. d'Andilly, to frighten his votary, I believe, into piety, for he
was even more in love with her person than I myself; but he loved her in
the Lord, purely and spiritually. I raised, in my turn, a demon that
appeared to her in a more kind and agreeable form. In six weeks I got
her away from Port Royal; I was very diligent in paying her my respects,
and the satisfaction I had in her company, with some other agreeable
diversions, qualified in a great measure the chagrin which attended my
profession, to which I was not yet heartily reconciled. This enchantment
had like to have raised such a storm as would have given a new face to
the affairs of Europe if fortune had been ever so little on my side.

M. the Cardinal de Richelieu loved rallying other people, but could not
bear a jest himself, and all men of this humour are always very crabbed
and churlish; of which the Cardinal gave an instance, in a public
assembly of ladies, to Madame de Guemenee, when he threw out a severe
jest, which everybody observed was pointed at me. She was sensibly
affronted, but I was enraged. For at last there was a sort of an
understanding between us, which was often ill-managed, yet our interests
were inseparable. At this time Madame de La Meilleraye, with whom,
though she was silly, I had fallen in love, pleased the Cardinal to that
degree that the Marshal perceived it before he set out for the army, and
rallied his wife in such a manner that she immediately found he was even
more jealous than ambitious. She was terribly afraid of him, and did not
love the Cardinal, who, by marrying her to his cousin, had lessened his
own family, of which he was extremely fond. Besides, the Cardinal's
infirmities made him look a great deal older than he was. And though all
his other actions had no tincture of pedantry, yet in his amoro