there was at that time a mania for playing
practical jokes; and Mademoiselle de
Gournay, with pendantry and peculiarities,
was considered as lawful game; many
unworthy tricks were played upon her by
persons who, nevertheless, dreaded the
explosions of her wrath on discovery, which
on such occasions were of an emphatic
simplicity of speech, startling to modern ears.
The word " hoaxing " was not then invented,
but the thing itself was well understood. A
forged letter was written, purporting to come
from King James the First of England,
requesting Mademoiselle de Gournay to send
him her portrait and her life. She fell into
the snare, and sat for her picture, and spent
six weeks in writing her memoirs, which she
actually sent to England—where, of course,
no one knew what to make of them. But
when Marshal Lavardin, who was the French
ambassador in England, returned to Paris,
the parties who forged the letter did not fail
to tell Mademoiselle de Gournay that the
King of England had spoken most highly of
her to the ambassador, and had shown him
her autograph, which occupied a distinguished
place in his cabinet. As M. de Lavardin died
almost directly after his return, Mademoiselle
de Gournay ran no risk of being undeceived.

For a short time she abandoned literature
and the belles lettres to plunge into alchemy,
for which she had a mania. Her friends
remonstrated in vain; they told her how
many other people alchemy had ruined, but
she not the less persisted in flinging the
remains of her fortune into the crucible.
Like all who have been bewitched by this
science, Marie fancied that her experiments
were arrested by poverty at the moment of
success. She retrenched in every way; in
food, in clothing; reduced herself to barest
necessaries; and sat constantly with the
bellows in her hand, hanging over the smoke
of her furnace. Of course, no gold rewarded
her research, and she was at length absolutely
obliged to abandon her laboratory, and betake
herself afresh to literature. As generous in
adversity as she had been in prosperity,
Mademoiselle de Gournay was not hindered by her
poverty from adopting an orphan child, the
daughter of Jamyn, the poet, and friend of
Ronsard. In the society of this young girl,
and of a cat which she celebrated in verse,
Marie de Gournay allowed everything in the
world to change and progress as they might,
fully persuaded that the glory of French
literature had died with her adopted father,
and that she had had the honour of burying it.

This cat deserves a special mention, as it
was a very noticeable animal in its day. It
rejoiced in the name of Piallion, and during
the twelve years it lived with Mademoiselle de
Gournay, it never once quitted the apartments
of its mistress to run with other cats upon
the roofs and gutters of the neighbouring
houses; it was, in all respects, discreet and
dignified, as became a cat of quality, and
above all, as became the cat of such a mistress
as Mademoiselle de Gournay. If Mademoiselle
de Gournay had been young and handsome,
Piallion would, no doubt, have been
as celebrated as Lesbia's sparrow; as it was,
however, it only shared in the satires and
caricatures that were made upon its mistress.
When Mademoiselle de Gournay renounced
alchemy, and began again to busy herself in
literature, she unfortunately mixed herself
up in some controversy of the day where the
Jesuits were in question; we forget what
side she took, but she brought down upon
herself much abuse and scandal; among other
things, she was accused of having led an
irregular life, and of being even then " une
femme galante! " This charge distressed her
greatly, and she appealed to a friend to write
her vindication. He told her, by way of
consolation, that if she would publish her
portrait, it would be more effectual than a
dozen vindications! Poor Mademoiselle de
Gournay had long since lost whatever good
looks she had possessed in early life, and her
alchemical pursuits had added at least ten
years to her appearance.

In the midst of all the disagreeable
circumstances of her lot, she was not without
some compensation. She kept up her relation
with the family of Montaigne, and went
on a visit to them in Guyenne, where she
remained fifteen months. In all her distresses,
Mademoiselle Montaigne, and her daughter
Mademoiselle de Gamaches, never deserted
her. There is a touching passage in one of
her works, in which the name of the " bonne
amye" is not mentioned. There is little doubt
but that it refers to one of these ladies; it is
as follows:

"If my condition be somewhat better than
could have been expected, from the miserable
remnant of fortune that remained to me after
the quittance of all my debts, liabilities, and
losses, it is the assistance of a good friend,
who took pleasure to see me keep up a decent
appearance, which is the cause of it."

Mademoiselle de Gournay also brightened
the dull realities of her existence with
brilliant ideas of the fame she was laying
up for herself with posterity—hopes which
neither Mademoiselle Jamyn nor Piallion
were likely to damp. In 1626, she published
a collection of her works, in prose and verse,
which she entitled "L'Ombre de Mademoiselle
de Gournay," and sat in her retirement
expecting the rebound of the sensation she
had no doubt of producing throughout Europe.

The book was written in imitation of
Montaigne's "Essays"—all manner of
subjects treated of, without any regard to order
or arrangement; long dissertations, rambling
from topic to topic in every chapter, without
any rule but her own caprice. It may be
imagined what advantage such a work would
give to those disposed to find matter for
ridicule; the spirit of mystification and love
of hoaxing were not extinct. There was