ed to have turned away from this family.

She waited, therefore, in growing terror; spending her days, as much
as she could, with the women of rank who lived in the little town of
Ganges, and some of whom, eye-witnesses of her mother-in-law's murder,
increased her terrors by the accounts which they gave of it, and which
she, with the despairing obstinacy of fear, asked to hear again and
again. As to her nights, she spent the greater part of them on her
knees, and fully dressed, trembling at the smallest sound; only
breathing freely as daylight came back, and then venturing to seek her
bed for a few hours' rest.

At last the marquis's attempts became so direct and so pressing, that
the poor young woman resolved to escape at all costs from his hands. Her
first idea was to write to her father, explain to him her position and
ask help; but her father had not long been a Catholic, and had suffered
much on behalf of the Reformed religion, and on these accounts it was
clear that her letter would be opened by the marquis on pretext of
religion, and thus that step, instead of saving, might destroy her. She
had thus but one resource: her husband had always been a Catholic; her
husband was a captain of dragoons, faithful in the service of the king
and faithful in the service of God; there could be no excuse for opening
a letter to him; she resolved to address herself to him, explained the
position in which she found herself, got the address written by another
hand, and sent the letter to Montpellier, where it was posted.

The young marquis was at Metz when he received his wife's missive. At
that instant all his childish memories awoke; he beheld himself at his
dying mother's bedside, vowing never to forget her and to pray daily for
her. The image presented itself of this wife whom he adored, in the same
room, exposed to the same violence, destined perhaps to the same fate;
all this was enough to lead him to take positive action: he flung
himself into a post-chaise, reached Versailles, begged an audience of
the king, cast himself, with his wife's letter in his hand, at the
feet of Louis XIV, and besought him to compel his father to return into
exile, where he swore upon has honour that he would send him everything
he could need in order to live properly.

The king was not aware that the Marquis do Ganges had disobeyed the
sentence of banishment, and the manner in which he learned it was not
such as to make him pardon the contrad