When he returned to his house, he found long faces on every side.  His servants made signs one to another, but nobody said a word.  He perceived this, and asked what was the matter; but, for some time, no one dared to reply.  At last a valet-de-chambre grew bold enough to say to Saint Aignan, that the Abbess, whose adventure had afforded so much mirth, was his own daughter; and that, after he had gone to the King, she had sent for assistance, in order to get out of the place where she was staying.

It was now the Duke’s turn to be confused.  After having made the King and all the Court laugh at this adventure, he became himself the laughing-stock of everybody.  He bore the affair as well as he could; carried away the Abbess and her baggage; and, as the scandal was public, made her send in her resignation and hide herself in another convent, where she lived more than forty years.

That worthy man, Saint-Herem, died this year at his house in Auvergne, to which he had retired.  Everybody liked him; and M. de Rochefoucauld had reproached the King for not making him Chevalier of the Order.  The King had confounded him with Courtine, his brother-in-law, for they had married two sisters; but when put right had not given the favour.

Madame de Saint-Herem was the most singular creature in the world, not only in face but in manners.  She half boiled her thigh one day in the Seine, near Fontainebleau, where she was bathing.  The river was too cold; she wished to warm it, and had a quantity of water heated and thrown into the stream just above her.  The water reaching her before it could grow cold, scalded her so much that she was forced to keep her bed.

When it thundered, she used to squat herself under a couch and make all her servants lie above, one upon the other, so that if the thunderbolt fell, it might have its effect upon them before penetrating to her.  She had ruined herself and her husband, though they were rich, through sheer imbecility; and it is incredible the amount of money she spent in her absurdities.

The best adventure which happened to her, among a thousand others, was at her house in the Place Royale, where she was one day attacked by a madman, who, finding her alone in her chamber, was very enterprising.  The good lady, hideous at eighteen, but who was at this time eighty and a widow, cried aloud as well as she could.  Her servants heard her at last, ran to her assistance, and found her all disordered, struggling in the hands of this raging madman.  The man was found to be really out of his senses when brought before the tribunal, and the story amused everybody.