"You heard me ?" said Bourdaloue, turning pale.

"Yes-certainly-"

"All ?"

"Almost all. As far as I could judge, you were just commencing as I arrived."

"Why did you not come in?"

"And interrupt you? I took care not to do that."

"At all events, are you satisfied ?”

"And you,—are not you?"

He sighed. Nothing is sweeter than praise, even when we do not think ourselves entirely deserving of it; but when we feel that it belongs entirely to another, it is a torment to us. How then could Bourdaloue remain silent? If any other than Claude had been the author of these pages so highly approved of by Bossuet, Bourdaloue would not have hesitated a moment to undeceive him; perhaps he would have done it, difficult as the confession would have been, if Bossuet had given him time, and had not immediately begun to relate to him his recent interview with the king. He contented himself, accordingly, with resolving to undeceive him at some future time; unless, indeed, this conclusion of the sermon should fail, or give offence, in which case he would take upon himself the whole responsibility.

CHAPTER XVIII.

LUIS XIV.-MADAME DE MONTESPAN.-THE DUKE DU MAINE-BOSSUET AGAIN WITH THE KING.-DEPARTURE OF MADAME DE MONTESPAN.

LET us retrace our steps a little. What had passed between Bossuet and the king?

Upon hearing himself summoned by the monarch, so soon after having sent a letter which he had almost repented having written, he could not but be somewhat uneasy. What did the king want? To thank him for having spoken, or to order him to be silent? Both suppositions were equally in accordance with the promptitude of the message. The darkness of the streets, and the solitude of his chair, giving free course to his excited imagination, he seemed at one moment to behold the king irritated, excited, throwing off angrily the yoke which he had attempted to impose upon him; at another, he fancied he heard him reiterate, but humbly and seriously, the same "What is to be done?" which had remained the first time without result.

On the other hand, having gone out at night, and without informing any one, he could not at all understand how the king had known where to send after him. This last point puzzled him extremely; an excited mind finds mystery in everything. There was, however, no mystery in this, as we shall soon see.

Instead of one letter, the king had received two, and by accident they were brought to him at the same time. From the address of the one, he perceived that it came from Bossuet;

and he had still less trouble in guessing from whom came the other. But with which should he commence? He hesitated. Not that he was not burning with impatience to open the second; but he thought that he owed it to his conscience and to Bossuet to commence with his letter, and if it were only for form's sake, to take the arms offered him before engaging in a new combat. The first carried the day; but he had scarcely broken the seal when he took the other and opened it. While unfolding it, came another twinge of conscience, and he ended by throwing them both down.

He soon returned to them; and as they had fallen into a dark corner, he took that which first presented itself. It was a sort of medium between his inclination and his scruples.

He did not repent of having done this, for the letter he had picked up, was that of Mme. de Montespan.

Written in the presence, and almost from the dictation of her two sisters, this letter nevertheless bore the impress of a kind of emotion which the king was little accustomed to see in the marquise. She said not a word of Bossuet, but the influence of his visit was visible. There was less levity, less arrogance; a calmness evidently affected, but which on any other occasion she would not even have taken the trouble to affect. Further, it was but the amplification, sometimes abrupt, sometimes insinuating and sophistical, of her last words to Bossuet. The king is master, she had said, and she repeated this to him in every way. It is well understood what this means; whoever affects to remind you that you are the master, you may be sure that it is neither in the desire of having you use your rights, nor in the intention of obeying you. The king asked nothing better than to order nothing, or not to be obeyed; but he would have wished something more positive; a firmer resistance, or a more sincere submission; more direct reproaches, or the absence of all

reproach, a letter in fine which would either have again bound him fast in his chains, or which would have completed their destruction. This was neither the one nor the other, and when we are in a state of indecision, we do not like it to appear that the whole charge and responsibility of the decision is left with us.

Disappointed, he took up Bossuet's letter again. The moment was a favorable one. His mind and heart seemed freer; it was the agreeable surprise which one feels,-even while still burdened with more than one reason for distress,-upon perceiving that a sacrifice which is to be made is less severe than one had believed. However, notwithstanding this beginning of a return to reason and order, it would have been impossible to follow without anxiety the alternations of docility and pride, of resignation and anger, which depicted themselves on his countenance as he went on. All the contradictory impressions which Bossuet had desired or feared to produce upon him, might have been seen rapidly succeeding each other at every line, and at the end the question would still have remained to be decided, as to whether the general effect were favorable or otherwise. It was in vain that this letter was bolder than the boldest things which Louis XIV. had ever heard or read; he had been allowed so to contract the habit of arranging the most positive teachings, the severest lessons, to suit himself, that it had become in some sort impossible for him to take them literally, even when he could not possibly doubt that they were addressed to him and only to him. Thus, it was not so easy to wound him as one would have believed; his pride was so great and so deeply rooted as to produce in him quite the contrary effect from that which it produces in the generality of men. With an ordinary amount of pride you are touchy; with an excessive amount you are more tractable; you do not dream that any one could have any intention to wound you.* * The social or hierarchical position often produces the same effect. A

Thus the king was far less offended than Bossuet had feared he would be; it might almost be said that he was not at all so, and that if he seemed irritated, it was only because he had found so many good reasons, where his heart, stronger than his head, had only desired to find bad ones.

These reasons, however, could not be absolutely without effect upon a man who was not destitute of judgment, nor even of some conscience. Still too feeble to be led by them to an explicit determination, he had at least the strength to wish for aid in this rude operation. It was therefore that he sent for the author of the letter. He did not very well know what to say to him, but he desired to see him again.

Unhappily, this favorable state of mind was not to last until the arrival of the prelate.

Scarcely had the king given orders that he should be sent for, when a third letter presented itself to his view, in the place where he had first thrown down the two others. It had arrived in the letter of the marquise, and he easily recognized the large childish scrawl of his son, the Duke du Maine.

The king was fonder

He was the eldest of their children.* of him than of his legitimate son, the dauphin; and if this preference had not been the violation of a sacred law, it might be said to be just; for the pupil of Mme. de Maintenon, at six years, was as agreeable and sprightly, as Bossuet's at fourteen was the contrary. His character changed subsequently. Without ceasing to be an agreeable man, and, no offence to Saint-Simon, who detested him, an honorable man, he was not all he had

general runs less risk in being familiar with the common soldiers, than the inferior commanders.

* They had had four; a son, dead young, the Duke du Maine, the Count du Vexin, and Mademoiselle de Nantes, afterwards Duchess de Bourbon. ↑ See his portrait in the memoirs of Mme. de Staal-Delannay.