The rumour was current in Paris that the example of “Soeur Louise” had touched me, and that I was going to take the veil in my convent.  I took no notice of this fickle public, and persisted wisely in my plan.

The unexpected and almost sudden decease of Mademoiselle de Fontanges had singularly moved the King.  Extraordinary and almost incredible to relate, he was for a whole week absent from the Council.  His eyes had shed so many tears that they were swollen and unrecognisable.  He shunned the occasions when there was an assembly, buried himself in his private apartments or in his groves, and resembled, in every trait, Orpheus weeping for his fair Eurydice, and refusing to be consoled.

I should be false to others and to myself if I were to say that his extreme grief excited my compassion; but I should equally belie the truth if I gave it to be understood that his “widowhood” gave me pleasure, and that I congratulated myself on his sorrow and bitterness.

He came to see me when he found himself presentable, and, for the first few days, I abstained from all reprisal and any allusion.  The innumerable labours of his State soon threw him, in spite of himself, into those manifold distractions which, in their nature, despise or absorb the sensibilities of the soul.  He resumed, little by little, his accustomed serenity, and, at the end of the month, appeared to have got over it.

“What,” he asked me, “are those buildings with which you are busy in Paris, opposite the Ladies of Belle-Chasse?  I hear of a convent; is it your intention to retire?”

“It is a ‘refuge of foresight,’” I answered him.  “Who can count upon the morrow?  And after what has befallen Mademoiselle de Fontanges, we must consider ourselves as persons already numbered, who wait only for the call.”

He sighed, and soon spoke of something else.

I reminded myself that, to speak correctly, I had in Paris no habitation worthy of my children and of my quality.  That little hotel in the Rue Saint Andre-des-Arcs I could count for no more than a little box.  I sought amongst my papers for a design of a magnificent hotel which I had obtained from the famous Blondel.  I found it without difficulty, with full elevations and sections.  The artist had adroitly imitated in it the beautiful architecture of the Louvre; this fair palace would suit me in every respect.

My architect, at a cursory glance, judged that the construction and completion of this edifice would easily cost as much as eighteen hundred thousand livres.  This expense being no more than I could afford, I commissioned him to choose me a spacious site for the buildings and gardens over by Roule and La Pepiniere.

Not caring to superintend several undertakings at once, I desired, before everything, that my house in the Faubourg Saint Germain should be complete and when the building and the chapel were in a condition to receive the little colony, I dedicated my “refuge of foresight” to Saint Joseph, the respectful spouse of the Holy Virgin and foster-father of the Child Jesus.  This agreeable mansion lacked a large garden.  I felt a sensible regret for this, especially for the sake of my inmates; but there was a little open space furnished with vines and fruit-walls, and one of the largest courtyards in the whole of the Faubourg Saint Germain.