a very bad character, and everyone predicted
evil to his young bride. Those predictions
were fulfilled; for the poor child suffered a
slow martyrdom from his jealous and brutal
temper.

The Duc of Mantua, a noted old profligate,
came to Paris, intent on marrying the beautiful
young widow, Madame de Lesdiguières;
with whose portrait, set in a ring and worn
by her husband, he had fallen desperately in
love. Madame de Lesdiguières was in the
first year of her widowhood, and had loved
her husband. She pertinaciously rejected
the match; though all her friends, Saint
Simon of the number, urged her to marry
this ugly, unhealthy, and infamous old man,
because he was rich. The young widow
refused, sometimes angrily, sometimes
tearfully; but always refused; and, in time, the
Duc dropped his suit. He then addressed
himself to another young and beautiful
reluctant, Mademoiselle d'Elbœuf, of the
House of Lorraine; whom her family had
thrust into his way, and who, notwithstanding
all her tears, was at last fairly forced
upon him as his wife. When he left Paris
for Italy, Madame d'Elbœuf, taking with
her Madame de Pompadour, her married
daughter, and Mademoiselle herself, pursued
him, overtaking him at Nevers, where they
partly cajoled and partly obliged him to
marry on the spot. The newly married
couple then parted: the Duc entering Italy
by one way, the ladies by another. In Italy
the marriage was re-solemnised, and the
Lorraines were satisfied with the result of
this bold intrigue. But the Duc punished
them by keeping his wife in a kind of
imprisonment; suffering her to see no one but
her women; walling-up her windows so high
that she could not look out of them; and
allowing only her mother to visit her—and
she but for one hour during the day.

"The great, ugly, idle, mischievous" Prince
de Léon was in despair. His father, the
Duc de Rohan, had torn him from La
Florence, an actress, and the mother of his
children. The Duc de Rohan cared nothing
for his son's despair. He was afraid that
De Léon's infatuation would one day make
La Florence the lawful Duchesse de Rohan,
so parted the lovers effectively before the
mischief of a marriage could be accomplished.
To console him, he was promised the eldest
daughter of the Duc de Roquelaure; ugly,
humpbacked, but to be fabulously dowried.
Negotiations began. Madame de Roquelaure
was avaricious, and demanded impossible
settlements. De Rohan refused them, and
the young couple were frantic; he, lest he
should lose his promised fortune: she, lest
she should lose her promised husband, and so
be left to wither in the convent where they
had placed her. De Léon managed to see
her in this convent, and they agreed to marry
without paternal consent on either side. De
Léon then set to work to deliver his princess.
He procured a carriage exactly similar to
that of a friend who often called to take
Mademoiselle out for a drive. This he sent,
one day, with a counterfeit letter—writing
and seal both forged—asking permission of
the Lady Superioress, from Madame de
Vieuville, to take Mademoiselle for a drive.
Permission granted, unhesitatingly; and
Mademoiselle, aged twenty-four, entered the
carriage with her governess. At the first
turning, De Léon jumped in, gagged the
screaming governess, and drove off to the
country house of our father-in-law, De
Lorges. There, a wandering and interdicted
priest married them; they went through the
usual ceremonies of public disrobing, &c., and,
after two or three hours, drove back to the
convent; when Mademoiselle de Roquelaure,
going straight to the room of the Lady
Superioress, told her minutely all that had
happened. After much rage and despair, and
frantic demands for lettres de cachet, and the
like, the marriage ceremony was re-enacted,
and the young couple—both ugly, and one
humpbacked—reaped a sorry fruit from their
romantic audacity. Their parents outlived
them on both sides, and neither dowry nor
allowance lightened their crushing poverty.

The marriage of the Duc de Berri was to
take place. He was Monseigneur's third
son, his favourite, and a "catch." La Condé,
of drinking memory, by this time had
marriageable daughters; so had the Duchesse
d'Orléans, our old acquaintance De Chartres.
The friends of these two ladies divided
themselves into two factions, each intriguing
manfully for the hand of the young Duc. Saint
Simon was busiest of all. He was on the
Orléans side, and worked night and day to
rouse the energy and ambition of his patrons.
But the Duc was passionately fond of his
daughter, and did not wish to marry her to
any one, and Madame was frightened at the
future. Intrigue prevailed over liking and
disliking. After unheard-of efforts, and the
regular organisation of a cabal by Saint
Simon, he and his party triumphed; and the
Duc de Berri married a reckless, debauched,
shameless drunkard, of immense use in
pulling down the whole fabric of French
royalty, by destroying public respect for its
members.

Everyone gamed. Not only laymen and
women, but priests, abbés, and cardinals.
That the courtier's lace and embroidery
would cover sins, seemed but natural and
fitting: but the priest's soutane, the nun's
veil, the coif of the lady abbess? Here
was, indeed, a contrast! The priests of that
day were notoriously bad. They lived
profaner lives than even the laity. They drank
harder, gamed deeper, swore more lustily, and
paraded their vices with greater hardihood.
Who, too, such servile flatterers as they?
When the soft-spoken and dangerous Abbé
de Polignac—whose seductive wiles damaged
the fair fame of even the beautiful and loveable