of her estates near Dunkirk.

Upon the Restoration, the persecutions which Madame de Saint-Dizier had
suffered for the Good Cause were entered to her credit, and she acquired
even then very considerable influence, in spite of the lightness of her
behavior. The Marquis d'Aigrigny, having entered the military service of
France, remained there. He was handsome, and of fashionable manners and
address. He had corresponded and conspired with the princess, without
knowing her; and these circumstances necessarily led to a close
connection between them.

Excessive self-love, a taste for exciting pleasures, aspirations of
hatred, pride, and lordliness, a species of evil sympathy, the perfidious
attraction of which brings together perverse natures without mingling
them, had made of the princess and the Marquis accomplices rather than
lovers. This connection, based upon selfish and bitter feelings, and upon
the support which two characters of this dangerous temper could lend to
each other against a world in which their spirit of intrigue, of
gallantry, and of contempt had made them many enemies, this connection
endured till the moment when, after his duel with General Simon, the
Marquis entered a religious house, without any one understanding the
cause of his unexpected and sudden resolution.

The princess, having not yet heard the hour of her conversion strike,
continued to whirl round the vortex of the world with a greedy, jealous,
and hateful ardor, for she saw that the last years of her beauty were
dying out.

An estimate of the character of this woman may be formed from the
following fact: