the real interests of the country, and looking only to the personal glory of the king, she partly precipitated France into a fatal war. While absent with the army, the king was seized with a dangerous illness. Urged by the religious party attached to the queen, Louis, through fear of dying without the last sacraments of the church, was induced publicly to discard his mistress. Scarcely had this been done when he recovered. His repentance had never been heartfelt, and he soon was mortified and humiliated at the part he had acted. Grieved at the loss of Madame de Chateauroux, he sought an interview with her, and she consented to receive his apology, provided it was made in a public manner, which, by her arrangement, was done by Maurepas, whom she wished to humble, in the presence of a large assembly. He requested forgiveness in the name of the king, and begged her return to court. But to that station which she had purchased at the cost of peace and honour, she was never destined to return. She became alarmingly ill, and died a few days after this public atonement. It would be unjust to deny to Madame de Chateauroux the merit of having sought to rouse Louis the Fifteenth from the state of apathetic indolence into which he had fallen. The means she took were injudicious, but they were noble. Experience would have taught her better; and, had her power continued, Louis the Fifteenth might have been a different man.
Madame de Chateauroux was one of those far-seeing women, who, with that instinctive foresight which arises from keenness of perception, had predicted the breaking out of the storm already gathering over France.
CHATELET, GABRIELLE EMILIE DE BRETRUEIL MARQUISE DU,
One of the most remarkable women of her time, is chiefly known through her connexion with Voltaire. Her parents married her in her nineteenth year to the Marquis du Chatelet, an honest but common-place man considerably her senior. The young marchioness made her appearance in the world with great eclat. She was graceful, handsome, and fond of pleasure; but her great talents long remained unsuspected. Madame du Chatelet's ideas of morality were those of her time, and she early exhibited them by an intrigue with the Duke of Richelieu, then celebrated for his gallantry. This connexion, however, was brief, and resulted in a sincere and lasting friendship. Madame du Chatelet's mind was superior to a life of mere worldly pleasure. Wearied of dissipation, she entered with ardour into the study of the exact sciences. Maupertius was her instructor in geometry, and the works of Newton and Leibnitz became her constant study. Geometry was then the rage, but Madame du Chatelet brought to the study of this science a mind strikingly adapted to its pursuit; and it was while thus devoting herself that she became acquainted with Voltaire. Madame du Chatelet was in her twenty-eighth year, and Voltaire twelve years her senior, when their liason commenced. The loose maxims of the period justified this connexion in the opinion of the world, and in their own; and the husband either did not suspect the truth, or if he did, felt indifferent to it. As he passed the greater part of his time with his regiment, he proved little or no restraint to
