Madame Bossuet knew how to take advantage of this weakness of her uncle, inability to take care of his income. She had become mistress of the episcopal mansion; she led a worldly life there; she entertained; she gave suppers and concerts.
During Lent of 1704, Bossuet lay at death's door. The terrible agonies of illness had caused him to lose sleep. See what happened just outside of the room where he lay in agony: "This evening Madame Bossuet gave an entertainment to the Bishop of Troyes, Madame de La Briffe, the dowager, Madame Amelot, President Larcher, and other male and female company, to the number of eight. There was a magnificent repast for those who were fasting and those who were not, with all the noise which attends such assemblies, and yet this went on in the very antechamber of M. de Meaux and in his hearing, when he longed for sleep with the greatest inquietude." (Mémoires of Abbé le Dieu, Volume III, page 74.)
It is easy to understand that Bossuet did not find in such surroundings the peace and quiet necessary for his immense labors. He had to find a retreat where he could escape the sounds of feasting and conversation which filled the episcopal house.
Let us cross the garden which was once laid out by Le Nôtre. Beyond the flower beds, overlooking the ancient ramparts of the town of Meaux, an avenue of clipped yews offers a sure and austere asylum for meditation. This was, it is said, the bishop's promenade. At the very end, upon the platform of a former bastion, a little pavilion served as his study. Its old wainscot-ings have disappeared, but the original division of the pavilion into two rooms has remained; one contained his bed, the other his worktable.
Here Bossuet shut himself up every evening. In the middle of the night, after sleeping four or five hours, he waked up of his own accord, for he was master of his hours of sleep. He found his desk in readiness, his armchair in position, his books piled upon chairs, his portfolio of papers, his pens, his writing pad and his lighted lamp; and he commenced to think and to write. On winter nights he buried himself to his waist in a bearskin bag. After a vigil of three hours, he said his matins and returned to slumber.
While, in the silence of the night, M. de Meaux wrote against heretics and prayed for them, armed himself for the eternal combat and worked for the welfare of the souls which were in his charge, the salons of the episcopal house were made gay by lights and violins.
Bossuet remained faithfully in his diocese during the twenty-two years that he was bishop of Meaux.
But he always preferred to live in his country house at Germigny rather than in his episcopal palace.
Two leagues across a pleasant and slightly undulating country, the road crosses the Marne by a stone bridge. In the seventeenth century there was only a ferry. On the left bank appears the little village of Germigny with its few houses dotted pleasantly along the hillside. The landscape has the grace and freshness which is characteristic of the whole valley of the Marne: a horizon of tiny hills, humble and smiling, a fertile and regularly cultivated plain, an old mill lost among the willows, a line of great poplars, a sluggish, grassy rivulet, resigned to continual detours, and finally, spread over all these things, a somewhat humid light which imparts to them a delicate charm—a lovable spectacle of which the eye cannot tire, since its subtle seductiveness lies wholly in the changes of the height and the flight of the clouds.