fascinations in the cloister, under the black robe and the
cherished name of Mere Angelique de Chaillot.

The young, brilliant, and gifted comtesse goes to the convent to
visit her gently austere sister-in-law, and meets there the
Princess Henrietta of England, than a child of eleven years. The
attraction is mutual and ripens into a deep and lasting
friendship. When this graceful and light-hearted girl becomes
the Duchesse d'Orleans, and sister-in-law of the king, she
attaches her friend to her court and makes her the confidante of
her romantic experiences. "Do you not think," she said to her
one day, "that if all which has happened to me, and the things
relating to it, were told it would make a fine story? You write
well; write; I will furnish you good materials." The interesting
memorial, to which madame herself contributes many pages, is
interrupted by the mysterious death of the gay and charming woman
who had found so sympathetic and so faithful a chronicler. She
breathed her last sigh in the arms of this friend. "It is one of
those sorrows for which one never consoles one's self, and which
leave a shadow over the rest of one's life," wrote Mme. de La
Fayette. She had no heart to finish the history, and added only
the few simple lines that record the touching incidents which
left upon her so melancholy and lasting an impression. She did
not care to remain longer at court, where she was constantly
reminded of her grief, and retired permanently from its gaieties;
but in these years of intimacy with one of its central figures,
she had gained an insight into its spirit and its intrigues,
which was of inestimable value in the memoirs and romances of her
later years.