Our second act was much more agreeable.  We quitted the court and a reigning mistress, for a dead one and a cloister.  In short, I had obtained leave from the Bishop of Chartres to enter into St. Cyr; and, as Madame du Deffand never leaves any thing undone that can give me satisfaction, she had written to the abbess to desire I might see every thing that could be seen there.  The Bishop’s order was to admit me, Monsieur de Grave, et les dames de ma compagnie:  I begged the abbess to give me back the order, that I might deposit it in the archives of Strawberry, and she complied instantly.  Every door flew open to us:  and the nuns vied in attentions to please us.  The first thing I desired to see was Madame de Maintenon’s apartment.  It consists of’ two small rooms, a library, and a very small chamber, the same in which the Czar saw her, and in which she died.  The bed is taken away, and the room covered now with bad pictures of the royal family, which destroys the gravity and simplicity.  It is wainscotted with oak, with plain chairs of the same, covered with dark blue damask.  Every where else the chairs are of blue cloth.  The simplicity and extreme neatness of the whole house, which is vast, are very remarkable.  A large apartment above, (for that I have mentioned is on the ground-floor,) consisting of five rooms, and destined by Louis Quatorze for Madame de Maintenon, is now the infirmary, with neat white linen beds, and decorated with every text of Scripture by which could be insinuated that the foundress was a Queen.  The hour of vespers being come, we were conducted to the chapel, and, as it was my curiosity that had led us thither, I was placed in the Maintenon’s own tribune; my company in the adjoining gallery.  The pensioners two and two, each band headed by a man, March orderly to their seats, and sing the whole service, which I confess was not a little tedious.  The young ladies to the number of two hundred and fifty are dressed in black, with short aprons of the same, the latter and their stays bound with blue, yellow, green or red, to distinguish the classes; the captains and lieutenants have knots of a different colour for distinction.  Their hair is curled and powdered, their coiffure a sort of French round-eared caps, with white tippets, a sort of ruff and large tucker:  in short, a very pretty dress.  The nuns are entirely in black, with crape veils and long trains, deep white handkerchiefs, and forehead cloths, and a very long train.  The chapel is plain but very pretty, and in the middle of the choir under a flat marble lies the foundress.  Madame de Cambis, one of the nuns, who are about forty, is beautiful as a Madonna.(1092) The abbess has no distinction but a larger and richer gold cross:  her apartment consists of two very small rooms.  Of Madame de Maintenon we did not see less than twenty pictures.  The young one looking over her shoulder has a round face, without the least resemblance to those of her latter age.  That in the roil mantle,