Cecile recovered something like health in the country, but she would not hear of doing anything save entering a convent.  She longed to be constantly praying for her husband, and she felt herself utterly incapable of coping with the world, or educating her son.  She took her little girl with her to be a pensionnaire at the Visitation, and entrusted her boy to me, to be brought up with mine.  They have indeed always been like brothers, and to me the tenderest and most dutiful of sons.  Maurice d’Aubepine never ceased to love his own mother, but as a sort of saint in a shrine, and he used to say that when he went to see her he always felt more as if he had been worshipping than making a visit.

I had learned a little prudence by my former disasters among the peasantry at Nid de Merle, and we did contrive to make them somewhat happier and more prosperous without giving umbrage to our neighbours.  They learned to love M. le Marquis with passionate devotion, and he has loved them in his turn with equal affection.  I delight to hear the shouts of ecstasy with which they receive him when he is seen riding through the narrow lanes of the Bocage on a visit to his mother and his home.

The King has always treated him with distinguished politeness, but without seeming desirous to retain him about Court, so that, as you know, he has always had employment either in the army or in governments, gaining ample honour, but without enjoying personal favour or intercourse with the King, who, it may be, trusts his loyalty, without brooking his plain speaking.

I saw my sister once again.  When she had at last settled in the old chateau, and after my son and nephew had made their first campaign at the siege of Lille, we had to join in the progress of the Court to Dunkirk and Lille to see the King’s new fortifications.  A strange progress it was to me, for Mademoiselle was by this time infatuated by her unfortunate passion for the Duke of Lauzun, and never ceased confiding to me her admiration and her despair whenever there was a shower of rain on his perruque.  However, when the Duchess of Orleans crossed to England I obtained permission to go with my son to visit our relations, since it was then the object to draw together as close as possible the links between the countries.

It was a joyous visit, though it was a shock to me to see the grand old castle of the Walwyn replaced by a square Dutch-looking brick house of many windows, only recently built, and where I remembered noble woods and grand trees to see only copse-wood and fields.  But who could regret anything when I saw my dear sister, a glad, proud, happy wife and mother, a still young, active, and merry matron, dazzlingly fair as ever, among her growing sons and pretty daughters, and indeed far more handsome than when she sat in the salons of Paris, weary and almost fierce, in her half-tamed, wild-cat days, whereas now her step was about the house and garden everywhere, as the notable housewife and good mother.