but as I have succeeded in attracting her confidence, and diverting her
as much as one can do in a purgatory like this, we dance sometimes in
secret, and then you would think you saw Mademoiselle de Nantes dance and
pirouette.

"When any one pronounces the name of the King, she trembles. She asked
me to-day whether I had seen the King, if he were handsome, if he were
courteous and affable. It seemed to me as though she was already
revolving some great project in her brain, and if I am not mistaken, she
has quite decided to scale the fruit-trees against our garden wall and
escape across country.

"M. Bossuet, in his quality of Bishop of Meaux, has the right of entry
into this house; he has come here three times since my arrival; he has
given me each time a little tap on my check in token of goodwill, and
such as one gets at confirmation; he told me that he longs to see me take
the veil of the Ursulines, as well as my little scholar; it is by that
name he likes to call her.

"Opportune answers him with a stately air which would astound you; she
only calls him monsieur, and when told that she has made an error, and
that she should say monseigneur, she replies with great seriousness, 'I
had forgotten it.'"

Mademoiselle Albanier, out of kindness to me, passed nearly two years in
this house, which she always called her purgatory, but the endeavours of
the superior and of M. Bossuet becoming daily more pressing, and her
health, which had suffered, being unable to support the seclusion longer,
she made up her mind to retire.