On Saturday, the 22nd of October of this year (1702), at about ten in the morning, I had the misfortune to lose my father-in-law, the Marechal de Lorges, who died from the effects of an unskilful operation performed upon him for the stone.  He had been brought up as a Protestant, and had practised that religion.  But he had consulted on the one hand with Bossuet, and on the other hand with M. Claude, (Protestant) minister of Charenton, without acquainting them that he was thus in communication with both.  In the end the arguments of Bossuet so convinced him that he lost from that time all his doubts, became steadfastly attached to the Catholic religion, and strove hard to convert to it all the Protestants with whom he spoke.  M. de Turenne, with whom he was intimately allied, was in a similar state of mind, and, singularly enough, his doubts were resolved at the same time, and in exactly the same manner, as those of M. de Lorges.  The joy of the two friends, who had both feared they should be estranged from each other when they announced their conversion, was very great.  The Comtesse de Roye, sister to M. de Lorges, was sorely affected at this change, and she would not consent to see him except on condition that he never spoke of it.

M. de Lorges commanded with great distinction in Holland and elsewhere, and at the death of M. de Turenne, took for the time, and with great honour, his place.  He was made Marshal of France on the 21st of February, 1676, not before he had fairly won that distinction.  The remainder of his career showed his capacity in many ways, and acquired for him the esteem of all.  His family were affected beyond measure at his loss.  That house was in truth terrible to see.  Never was man so tenderly or so universally regretted, or so worthy of being so.  Besides my own grief, I had to sustain that of Madame de Saint-Simon, whom many times I thought I should lose.  Nothing was comparable to the attachment she had for her father, or the tenderness he had for her; nothing more perfectly alike than their hearts and their dispositions.  As for me, I loved him as a father, and he loved me as a son, with the most entire and sweetest confidence.

About the same time died the Duchesse de Gesvres, separated from a husband who had been the scourge of his family, and had dissipated millions of her fortune.  She was a sort of witch, tall and lean, who walked like an ostrich.  She sometimes came to Court, with the odd look and famished expression to which her husband had brought her.  Virtue, wit, and dignity distinguished her.  I remember that one summer the King took to going very often in the evening to Trianon, and that once for all he gave permission to all the Court, men and women, to follow him.  There was a grand collation for the Princesses, his daughters, who took their friends there, and indeed all the women went to it if they pleased.  One day the Duchesse de Gesvres took it into her head to go to Trianon and partake of this