“For convalescents, greater care is required than for others; the King, and the whole of France, beseech you, with my voice, to have respect and care for the convalescence of our monarch, and I beg you, madame, to leave at once for Fontevrault.”

“For Fontevrault?” I cried, without betraying my emotion.  “Fontevrault is near Poitiers; it is too far away.  No, I would rather go to Petit-Bourg, near the forest of Fontainebleau.”

“Fontainebleau is but eighteen leagues from the capital,” he answered; “such proximity would be dangerous.  I must insist upon Fontevrault, madame.”

“But I cannot take my children to Fontevrault,” I retorted; “the nuns, and the Abbess herself, would never admit them.  You know better than I do that it is a nunnery.”

“Your children,” said he, “are not necessary to you; Madame de la Valliere managed to leave here for good and all.”

“Yes; and in forsaking them she committed a crime,” I answered; “only ferocious-hearted persons could have counselled her or commanded her to do so.”  And saying this, I rose, and gave him a glance of disdain.

He grew somewhat gentler in manner as he slowly went on, “His Majesty will take care of your children; it behoves you to save their mother.  And, in order to prove to you that I have not come here of my own accord, but that, on the contrary, I am executing a formal command, here is a letter of farewell addressed to you by the King.”

I took the letter, which was couched in the following terms: 

It is but right, madame, that on so solemn an occasion I should set an example myself.  I must ask you henceforth to consider our intimacy entirely at an end.  You must retire to Fontevrault, where Madame de Montemart will take care of you and afford you distraction by her charming society.  Your children are in good hands; do not be in the least uneasy about them.  Farewell.  I wish you all the firmness and well-being possible.  LOUISON

In the first flush of my indignation I was about to trample under foot so offensive a communication.  But the final phrase shocked me less than the others.

I read it over again, and understood that if the King recommended me to be firm, it was because he needed to be firm himself.  I soon mastered my emotion, and looked at things in their real light.  It was easy to see that sanctimonious fanatics had forced the King to act.  Bossuet was not sanctimonious, but, to serve his own ends, proffered himself as spokesman and emissary, being anxious to prove to his old colleagues that he was on the side of what they styled moral conduct and good example.