proclaimed herself a sufferer for the Protestant religion. Then
again she adopted the style of John Hampden. She defied the King
to remove her. She would try the right with him. While the Great
Charter and the Habeas Corpus Act were the law of the land, she
would live where she pleased. "And Flanders," she cried; "never!
I have learned one thing from my friend the Duchess of Mazarin;
and that is never to trust myself in a country where there are
convents." At length she selected Ireland as the place of her
exile, probably because the brother of her patron Rochester was
viceroy there. After many delays she departed, leaving the
victory to the Queen.68

The history of this extraordinary intrigue would be imperfect, if
it were not added that there is still extant a religious
meditation, written by the Treasurer, with his own hand, on the
very same day on which the intelligence of his attempt to govern
his master by means of a concubine was despatched by Bonrepaux to
Versailles. No composition of Ken or Leighton breathes a spirit
of more fervent and exalted piety than this effusion. Hypocrisy
cannot be suspected: for the paper was evidently meant only for
the writer's own eye, and was not published till he had been more
than a century in his grave. So much is history stranger than
fiction; and so true is it that nature has caprices which art
dares not imitate. A dramatist would scarcely venture to bring on
the stage a grave prince, in the decline of life, ready to
sacrifice his crown in order to serve the interests of his
religion, indefatigable in making proselytes, and yet deserting
and insulting a wife who had youth and beauty for the sake of a
profligate paramour who had neither. Still less, if possible,
would a dramatist venture to introduce a statesman stooping to