cure him that cheerfulness which I had not myself. Louis was
accustomed to the most delicate flatteries; and though I had a good
share of wit, my faculties were continually on the stretch to entertain
him,--a state of mind little consistent with happiness or ease; I was
afraid to advance my friends or punish my enemies. My pupils at St. Cyr
were not more secluded from the world in a cloister than I was in the
bosom of the court; a secret disgust and weariness consumed me. I had no
relief but in my work and books of devotion; with these alone I had a
gleam of happiness.

_Helen_--Alas! one need not have married a great monarch for that.

_Maintenon_--But deign to inform me, Helen, if you were really as
beautiful as fame reports? for to say truth, I cannot in your shade see
the beauty which for nine long years had set the world in arms.

_Helen_--Honestly, no: I was rather low, and something sunburnt; but I
had the good fortune to please; that was all. I was greatly obliged
to Homer.

_Maintenon_--And did you live tolerably with Menelaus after all your
adventures?

_Helen_--As well as possible. Menelaus was a good-natured domestic man,
and was glad to sit down and end his days in quiet. I persuaded him that
Venus and the Fates were the cause of all my irregularities, which he
complaisantly believed. Besides, I was not sorry to return home: for to
tell you a secret, Paris had been unfaithful to me long before his
death, and was fond of a little Trojan brunette whose office it was to
hold up my train; but it was thought dishonorable to give me up. I began
to think love a very foolish thing: I became a great housekeeper, worked
the battles of Troy in tapestry, and spun with my maids by the side of
Menelaus, who was so satisfied with my conduct, and behaved, good man,
with so much fondness, that I verily think this was the happiest period
of my life.

_Maintenon_--Nothing more likely; but the most obscure wife in Greece
could rival you there.--Adieu! you have convinced me how little fame and
greatness conduce to happiness.

LIFE

Life! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when or how or where we met,
I own to me's a secret yet.
But this I know, when thou art fled,
Where'er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be,
As all that then remains of me.
O whither, whither dost thou fly,