n the body to its ocean burial, the grief-stricken
mother implored the privilege of one parting embrace. As she pressed
the child to her heart, she perceived indications of life. The babe
recovered, to occupy a position which filled the world with her
renown.

Upon the island of Martinique prosperity smiled upon them. Madame
d'Aubigne was a Catholic, though her husband was a Protestant. She at
length took ship for France, hoping to save some portion of her
husband's sequestered estates, but was unsuccessful. Upon her return
to Martinique, she found that Baron d'Aubigne, during her absence,
deprived of her restraining influence, had utterly ruined himself by
gambling. Overwhelmed by regret and misery, he almost immediately
sank into the grave. Madame d'Aubigne and her two children, in the
extreme of poverty, returned to France. Madame de Vilette again took
the little Francoise to the chateau of Marcey. As her mother was a
Catholic, Francoise had been baptized by a Romish priest, and reared
in the faith of her mother. The Countess de Neuillant, who was
attached to the household of Anne of Austria, was her godmother, and a
very intense Catholic; but Madame de Vilette, the sister of the
child's father, was a Protestant. The susceptible child was soon led
to adopt the faith of her protectress. Catholic zeal was such in those
days that Madame de Neuillant obtained an order from the court to
remove the little girl from the Protestant family, and to place her
under her own guardianship. Here every effort was made to induce
Francoise to return to the Catholic faith, but neither threats nor
entreaties were of any avail. She remained firm in her Protestant
principles. The persecution she endured amounted almost to martyrdom.
Madame de Neuillant, in her rage, imposed upon her the most
humiliating and onerous domestic services. She was the servant of the
servants. She fed the horses. She suffered from cold and hunger. Thus
she, who subsequently caused the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
and thus exposed the Protestants to the most dreadful sufferings, was
a martyr of the religion of which she later became so terrible a
scourge.

The mother, witnessing the distress of her child, succeeded in
withdrawing her from Madame de Neuillant, and placing her in a
convent. Here the Ursuline nuns won her over to the Catholic faith.
Proud of their convert, who was remarkably intelligent and attractive,
they kept her for a year. But as neith