[168] Is this not an allusion of our author to some nunneries not in very good repute at the time?
[169] This applies, it is said, to the Maréchale de la Ferté, mentioned on page 67, note 2, and to the Duke dʼAumontʼs second wife, who died in 1711, sixty-one years old.
[170] At the time La Bruyère wrote, nearly every fashionable lady had, besides her father-confessor, a spiritual director, who was her “guide, philosopher, and friend.” Boileau, in his tenth satire, says:—
“Mais de tous les mortels, grâce aux dévotes âmes,
Nul nʼest si bien soigné quʼun directeur de femmes.”
[171] Placer des domestiques, in the original; domestique was used for any person belonging to the household of some great nobleman, even if he were himself a noble; it also meant “a household.”
[172] A note of La Bruyère says that this refers to “assumed piety.”
[173] Those ladies are supposed to have been the Duchesse dʼAumont, already mentioned; the Countess de Lyonne, the wife of a minister of state; the Duchess de Lesdiguières, and the Countess de Roucy.
[174] Our authorʼs note says, “A pretended pious woman.”
[175] It was then the custom for people who had a lawsuit to go and solicit their judges in person.