Chapter XLVII: Letter XXXVI: PARIS, Monday, January 15, 1674

Saturday last I dined with M. de Pomponne, as I told you, and was there till five o’clock, enchanted, transported, enraptured with the beauties of Despréaux’s Art of Poetry. D’Hacqueville was there, we often talked of the pleasure you would have received from it. M. de Pomponne recollected that one day when you were a very little girl at your Uncle de Sévigné’s, you got behind a large window with your brother, and said you were a prisoner, a poor unfortunate princess driven from your father’s house; your brother, who was as handsome as yourself, and you were as handsome as an angel played his part extremely well. You were nine years of age. He made me remember the day perfectly. He never forgets one moment that he has seen you, and promises himself great pleasure in seeing you again, which is very gratifying to me. I own to you, my dear, that my heart is bursting with joy, but I shall conceal it till I know your resolution.

M. de Villars is returned home from Spain, and has given us a thousand amusing anecdotes respecting the Spaniards. I have at length seen La Marans in her cell, for it is nothing else. I found her quite in dishabille, not a single hair to be seen, with a coarse coif of old Venice point, a black handkerchief on her neck, a faded gray gown, and an old petticoat. She seemed very glad to see me; we embraced each other tenderly. She does not seem at all changed. We began the conversation by talking of you; she appears to love you as well as she ever did, and seemed so humble that it is impossible to help loving her. We then talked of the religious life she had lately embraced. She assured me it was true that God had vouchsafed her a great portion of grace, of which she had the most grateful sense; that this grace consists in great faith, profound love of God, horror of the world and its vanities, and a thorough distrust of herself, adding, that if she were to go abroad for only an hour, this divine spirit would evaporate. In short, she seems to preserve it carefully in her solitude like a bottle of fine perfume; she believes the world would make her lose this precious liquor, and she even fears the parade of devotion might spill it. Madame de Schomberg says she is not to be compared to Madame de Marans. Her savage disposition is softened into a passion for retirement; the disposition does not change; she is even exempt from the folly common to most women, to love their confessor; she does not approve this tie, and never speaks to him but at confession. She goes on foot to her parish church, reads all our books of religion, works, prays, has a fixed time for every thing, takes all her meals in her own room, sees Madame de Schomberg at a certain hour, hates news as much as she used to like it, is as charitable to others as she used to slander them, and loves the Creator as much as she loved the creature. We laughed a good deal at her former manners, and turned them into ridicule. She has not the least air of the Collette sisters. She speaks very sincerely and very agreeably of her situation. I was two hours with her without being at all dull. She reproached herself even for this pleasure, but without the least affectation; in short, she is much more amiable than she ever was. I do not think, my dear child, you can complain that I have not been particular enough.

I have just received your letter of the 7th. I own to you, my dearest, that the joy it has given me is so lively that my heart can scarcely contain it. You know how strongly it feels, and I should hate myself if I were so warmly interested in my own affairs as in yours. At last, my child, you are coming; this is the most delightful to me of all. But I am going to tell you something you do not expect, which is, that I solemnly swear to you that if M. de la Garde had not deemed your journey expedient, and that if it really were not so for your own affairs, I would not have taken into consideration, at least for this year, the ardent desire I have to see you, nor what you owe to my infinite affection. I know how to keep within the bounds of reason, whatever it cost me, and I have sometimes as much strength in my weakness as those who are wiser. After this sincere confession I can not conceal from you that I am penetrated with joy, and that, reason concurring with my wishes, I am, at the moment I write to you, perfectly satisfied, so that I think of nothing now but of receiving you. Do you know, the best thing after yourself and M. de Grignan, would be to bring the coadjutor? You will not perhaps always have La Garde; and if he fails you, you well know M. de Grignan is not so zealous in his own affairs as in those of the king, his master. He has a religious care of those, which can only be compared to his negligence with regard to his own. When he will take the trouble to speak, no one does it better, and we can not therefore but wish it. You are not like Madame de Cauvisson, to act alone; you must wait eight or ten years. But M. de Grignan, you, and the coadjutor, would do admirably together. Cardinal de Retz is just arrived, and will be delighted to see you. What joy, my dear child, will your return occasion! but, above all things, come prudently. It is to M. de Grignan I give this charge, and I expect him to be accountable to me. I have written to the coadjutor, to entreat him to accompany you. He will facilitate our audience with the two ministers, and will support his brother’s interest. The coadjutor is bold and fortunate, and you will mutually heighten each other’s consequence. I could talk till this time to-morrow upon the subject. I have written to the archbishop. Gain my point with the coadjutor, and give him my letter.

The prince has come back, after having been thirty leagues on his journey. M. de Turenne did not go. M. de Monterei has withdrawn his forces, and M. de Luxembourg is now at liberty. Within these twenty-four hours the chapel at St. Germain has been robbed of a silver lamp, worth seventy thousand francs, and six candlesticks of the same metal, each of them taller than I am. This is a daring insolence.[104] The ropes they made use of to get in were found by the Richelieu gallery. No one can conceive how the robbery could have been committed, for there are guards continually going that way, and patrolling about all night.

[104] The Duke of Saint-Simon relates a still more extraordinary
robbery that took place at Versailles. In one night all the gold
ornaments and fringes were stolen from the state apartment, from
the gallery to the chapel. Whatever inquiries were made, no trace
could be found of the robber. But five or six days after, the
king being at supper, an enormous packet fell suddenly upon the
table at some distance from him; it contained the stolen fringes,
with a note fastened to it with these words, “Bontems, take thy
fringes again, the pleasure pays not half the pain.” Saint-Simon
was a witness of this.

Do you know that peace is talked of? M. de Chaulnes is since come from Brittany, and is to set out again immediately for Cologne.