terror of the bedevilled and persecuted
Jansenists. Besides this, I learned what has been before pretty clearly
evident; namely, that Montreuil was greatly in the confidence of the
Chevalier, and that he was supposed already to have rendered essential
service to the Stuart cause. His reputation had increased with every
year, and was as great for private sanctity as for political talent.

When this information, given in a very different spirit from that in
which I retail it, was over, Madame de Balzac observed, "Doubtless you
will obtain a private audience with the king?"

"Is it possible, in his present age and infirmities?"

"It ought to be, to the son of the brave Marshal Devereux."

"I shall be happy to receive Madame's instructions how to obtain the
honour: her name would, I feel, be a greater passport to the royal
presence than that of a deceased soldier; and Venus's cestus may obtain
that grace which would never be accorded to the truncheon of Mars!"

Was there ever so natural and so easy a compliment? My Venus of fifty
smiled.

"You are mistaken, Count," said she; "I have no interest at court: the
Jesuits forbid that to a Jansenist, but I will speak this very day to
the Bishop of Frejus; he is related to me, and will obtain so slight a
boon for you with ease. He has just left his bishopric; you know how
he hated it. Nothing could be pleasanter than his signing himself, in a
letter to Cardinal Quirini, 'Fleuri, Eveque de Frejus par l'indignation
divine.' The King does not like him much; but he is a good man on the
whole, though jesuitical; he shall introduce you."

I expressed my gratitude for the favour, and hinted that possibly the
relations of my father's first wife, the haughty and ancient house of
La Tremouille, might save the Bishop of Frejus from the pain of exerting
himself on my behalf.

"You are very much mistaken," answered Madame de Balzac: "priests point
the road to court as well as to Heaven; and warriors and nobles have as
little to do with the former as they have with the latter, the unlucky
Duc de Villars only excepted,--a man whose ill fortune is enough to
destroy all the laurels of France. _Ma foi_! I believe the poor Duke
might rival in luck that Italian poet who said, in a fit of despair,
that if he had been bred a hatter, men would have been born without
heads."

And Madame de Balzac chuckled over this joke, till, seeing that
no further news was to be gleaned from her, I made my adi