s been subject to it dreadfully,
from a child.

_Bossuet_. Really! I never heard so.

_Fontanges_. I checked myself as well as I could, although they
constantly told me I looked well in it.

_Bossuet_. In what, mademoiselle?

_Fontanges_. In quietism; that is, when I fell asleep at sermon-time. I
am ashamed that such a learned and pious man as M. de Fenelon should
incline to it, as they say he does.

_Bossuet_. Mademoiselle, you quite mistake the matter.

_Fontanges_. Is not then M. de Fenelon thought a very pious and learned
person?

_Bossuet_. And justly.

_Fontanges_. I have read a great way in a romance he has begun, about a
knight-errant in search of a father. The King says there are many such
about his court; but I never saw them nor heard of them before. The
Marchioness de la Motte, his relative, brought it to me, written out in
a charming hand, as much as the copybook would hold; and I got through,
I know not how far. If he had gone on with the nymphs in the grotto, I
never should have been tired of him; but he quite forgot his own
story, and left them at once: in a hurry (I suppose) to set out upon
his mission to Saintonge in the _pays de d'Aunis_, where the King has
promised him a famous _heretic-hunt_. He is, I do assure you, a
wonderful creature: he understands so much Latin and Greek, and knows
all the tricks of the sorceresses. Yet you keep him under.

_Bossuet_. Mademoiselle, if you really have anything to confess, and if
you desire that I should have the honour of absolving you, it would be
better to proceed in it, than to oppress me with unmerited eulogies on
my humble labours.

_Fontanges_. You must first direct me, monseigneur: I have nothing
particular. The King assures me there is no harm whatever in his love
toward me.

_Bossuet_. That depends on your thoughts at the moment. If you abstract
the mind from the body, and turn your heart toward heaven--

_Fontanges_. O monseigneur, I always did so--every time but once--you
quite make me blush. Let us converse about something else, or I shall
grow too serious, just as you made me the other day at the funeral
sermon. And now let me tell you, my lord, you compose such pretty
funeral sermons, I hope I shall have the pleasure of hearing you preach
mine.

_Bossuet_. Rather let us hope, mademoiselle, that the hour is yet far
distant when so melancholy a service will be performed for you. May he
who is unborn be the sad announcer of your depa