In the month of this September, a strange attempt at assassination occurred.  Vervins had been forced into many suits against his relatives, and was upon the point of gaining them all, when one of his cousins-german, who called himself the Abbe de Pre, caused him to be attacked as he passed in his coach along the Quai de la Tournelle, before the community of Madame de Miramion.  Vervins was wounded with several sword cuts, and also his coachman, who wished to defend him.  In consequence of the complaint Vervins made, the Abbe escaped abroad, whence he never returned, and soon after, his crime being proved, was condemned to be broken alive on the wheel.  Vervins had long been menaced with an attack by the Abbe.  Vervins was an agreeable, well-made man, but very idle.  He had entered the army; but quitted it soon, and retired to his estates in Picardy.  There he shut himself up without any cause of disgust or of displeasure, without being in any embarrassment, for on the contrary he was well to do, and all his affairs were in good order, and he never married; without motives of piety, for piety was not at all in his vein; without being in bad health, for his health was always perfect; without a taste for improvement, for no workmen were ever seen in his house; still less on account of the chase, for he never went to it.  Yet he stayed in his house for several years, without intercourse with a soul, and, what is most incomprehensible, without budging from his bed, except to allow it to be made.  He dined there, and often all alone; he transacted what little business he had to do there, and received while there the few people he could not refuse admission to; and each day, from the moment he opened his eyes until he closed them again, worked at tapestry, or read a little; he persevered until his death in this strange fashion of existence; so uniquely singular, that I have wished to describe it.

CHAPTER XXXI

There presents itself to my memory an anecdote which it would be very prudent perhaps to be silent upon, and which is very curious for anybody who has seen things so closely as I have, to describe.  What determines me to relate it is that the fact is not altogether unknown, and that every Court swarms with similar adventures.  Must it be said then?  We had amongst us a charming young Princess who, by her graces, her attentions, and her original manners, had taken possession of the hearts of the King, of Madame de Maintenon, and of her husband, Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne.  The extreme discontent so justly felt against her father, M. de Savoie, had not made the slightest alteration in their tenderness for her.  The King, who hid nothing from her, who worked with his ministers in her presence whenever she liked to enter, took care not to say a word in her hearing against her father.  In private, she clasped the King round the neck at all hours, jumped upon his knees, tormented him with all sorts of sportiveness,