a mighty
honour to have Madame de Maintenon every day for nurse, but who,
nevertheless, was dying of weariness, used to see his friends in the
evening (when Madame de Maintenon and his mother were gone), and would
relate to them, with burlesque exaggeration, all the miseries he had
suffered during the day, and ridicule the devotional discourses he had
listened to. All the time his illness lasted, Madame de Maintenon came
every day to see him, so that her credulity, which no one dared to
enlighten, was the laughing-stock of the Court. She conceived such a
high opinion of the virtue of Courcillon, that she cited him always as an
example, and the King also formed the same opinion. Courcillon took good
care not to try and cultivate it when he became cured; yet neither the
King nor Madame de Maintenon opened their eyes, or changed their conduct
towards him. Madame de Maintenon, it must be said, except in the sublime
intrigue of her government and with the King, was always the queen of
dupes.

It would seem that there are, at certain times, fashions in crimes as in
clothes. At the period of the Voysins and the Brinvilliers, there were
nothing but poisoners abroad; and against these, a court was expressly
instituted, called ardente, because it condemned them to the flames. At
the time of which I am now speaking, 1703, for I forgot to relate what
follows in its proper place, forgers of writings were in the ascendant,
and became so common, that a chamber was established composed of
councillors of state and others, solely to judge the accusations which
this sort of criminals gave rise to.

The Bouillons wished to be recognised as descended, by male issue, of the
Counts of Auvergne, and to claim all kinds of distinctions and honours in
consequence. They had, however, no proofs of this, but, on the contrary,
their genealogy proved it to be false. All on a sudden, an old document
that had been interred in the obscurity of ages in the church of Brioude,
was presented to Cardinal Bouillon. It had all the marks of antiquity,
and contained a triumphant proof of the descent of the house of La Tour,
to which the Bouillons belonged, from the ancient Counts of Auvergne.
The Cardinal was delighted to have in his hands this precious document.
But to avoid all suspicion, he affected modesty, and hesitated to give
faith to evidence so decisive. He spoke in confidence to all the learned
men he knew, and begged them to examine the docu