obstinacy of Madame de Lesdiguieres.  Six months after, Madame d’Elboeuf returned, beside herself with vexation, but too vain to show it.  She disguised the misfortune of her daughter, and appeared to be offended if it was spoken of; but all our letters from the army showed that the news was true.  The strangest thing of all is, that the Lorraines after this journey were as well treated by the King as if they had never undertaken it; a fact which shows their art and ascendency.

I have dwelt too long perhaps upon this matter.  It appeared to me to merit attention by its singularity, and still more so because it is by facts of this sort that is shown what was the composition of the Court of the King.

About this time the Comtesse d’Auvergne finished a short life by an illness very strange and uncommon.  When she married the Comte d’Auvergne she was a Huguenot, and he much wanted to make her turn Catholic.  A famous advocate of that time, who was named Chardon, had been a Huguenot, and his wife also; they had made a semblance, however, of abjuring, but made no open profession of Catholicism.  Chardon was sustained by his great reputation, and by the number of protectors he had made for himself.

One morning he and his wife were in their coach before the Hotel-Dieu, waiting for a reply that their lackey was a very long time in bringing them.  Madame Chardon glanced by chance upon the grand portal of Notre Dame, and little by little fell into a profound reverie, which might be better called reflection.  Her husband, who at last perceived this, asked her what had sent her into such deep thought, and pushed her elbow even to draw a reply from her.  She told him then what she was thinking about.  Pointing to Notre Dame, she said that it was many centuries before Luther and Calvin that those images of saints had been sculptured over that portal; that this proved that saints had long since been invoked; the opposition of the reformers to this ancient opinion was a novelty; that this novelty rendered suspicious other dogmas against the antiquity of Catholicism that they taught; that these reflections, which she had never before made, gave her much disquietude, and made her form the resolution to seek to enlighten herself.

Chardon thought his wife right, and from that day they laid themselves out to seek the truth, then to consult, then to be instructed.  This lasted a year, and then they made a new abjuration, and both ever afterwards passed their lives in zeal and good works.  Madame Chardon converted many Huguenots.  The Comte d’Auvergne took his wife to her.  The Countess was converted by her, and became a very good Catholic.  When she died she was extremely regretted by all the relatives of her husband, although at first they had looked upon her coldly.