with her about GRACE before company, and entertain'd her with something else in private. This made me forsake the Jansenists. Before that I never miss'd a Sermon of Father Desmares, and never swore but by the Gentlemen of Port-Royal; but I have consess'd my self to the Jesuits ever since: and if my Son has ever any Children, I am resolv'd they shall go to the College of Clermont, or else I'll disinherit 'em."
"Oh, how wonderful are the ways of God!" cried out Father Canaye: "How profound is the mystery of his Justice! A fopling of a Jansenist pretends love to a Lady whom my Lord wished well to: the merciful God makes use of Jealousy to put the Conscience of my Lord into our hands; mirabilia judicia tua, Domine, wonderful are thy Judgments, O Lord!"
After the good Father had ended his pious Reflections, I thought I might be allowed to have a share in the Conversation; so I ask'd the Mareschal, if the Love of Philosophy did not succeed the Passion he had for Madam de Montbazon? "A plague on't, I have lov'd Philosophy but too well," said the Mareschal, "I have loved it but too well; but I have left it at last, and will trouble my head no more with it. A Devil of a Philosopher had so puzzled my Brain about the first Parents, the Apple, the Serpent, terrestrial Paradise, and the Cherubims, that I had like to have
Lady, was one of the principal Motives of his Conversion and Retirement. Madam de Montbazon died of the Small Pox in a country Seat, where the Abbot being come, from Paris, upon the first news of her illness, and finding no body in the entry, he went up to the Dutchess's Apartment thro' the Back-stairs; and the first Object that presented it self to his sight, was Madam de Montbazon's Corps, diffigur'd in the most horrid and ghastly manner, and ready to be laid in the Coffin. This made so lively an impression upon him, that he renounced the World, and settled in his Abbey of La Trappe a very austere Reform. He died on the 26th of October, 1700.
