There was a moment's silence after Madame de Sévigné's eloquent outburst. The eyes of the three friends were lost for a moment in the twinkling flames. The duchesse and Madame de Kerman exchanged meaning glances.
"Since the duke's death her thoughts are more and more turned toward religion. I hear she has been fortunate in her choice of directors, has she not? Du Guet is said to be an ideal confessor for the authoress of 'La Princesse de Clèves.'" There was just a suspicion of malice in the duchesse's tones.
"Oh, he was born to take her in hand. He knew just when to speak with authority, and when to make use of the arts of persuasion. He wrote to her once, you remember: 'You, who have passed your life in dreaming—cease to dream! You, who have taken such pride unto yourself for being so true in all things, were very far, indeed, from the truth—you were only half true—falsely true. Your godless wisdom was in reality purely a matter of good taste!'"
"What audacity! Bossuet himself could not have put the truth more nakedly." The duchesse was one of those to whom truths were novelties, and unpleasant ones.
"Bossuet, if I remember rightly, was with the Duke de La Rochefoucauld at the last, was he not?"
"Yes," responded Madame de Sévigné; "he was with him; he administered the supreme unction. The duke was in a beautiful state of grace. M, Vinet, you remember, said of him that he died with 'perfect decorum.'"
"Speaking of dying reminds me"—cried suddenly Madame de Sévigné—"how are the duke's hangings getting on?"
"They begin, the duke writes me, to hang again to-morrow," answered the duchesse, with a certain air of disdain, the first appearance of this weapon of the great now coming to the grande dame's aid. Her husband, the Duke de Chaulnes' trouble with his revolutionary citizens at Rennes was a subject that never failed to arouse a feeling of angry contempt in her. It was too preposterous, the idea of those insolent creatures rising against him, their rightful duke and master!
The duchesse's feeling in the matter was fully shared by her friends. In all the court there was but one opinion in the matter—hanging was really far too good for the wretched creatures.
"Monsieur de Chaulnes," the duchesse went on, with ironical contempt in her voice, "still goes on punishing Rennes!"