necessary that I explain this secret to you.

Mrs. Trant, whom I have named above, had been preparing herself for
the retired abstemious life of a Carmelite by taking a surfeit of
the pleasures of Paris, when, a little before the death of the
Queen, or about that time, she went into England. What she was
entrusted either by the Chevalier, or any other person, to negotiate
there, I am ignorant of; and it imports not much to know. In that
journey she made or renewed an acquaintance with the Duke of Ormond.
The scandalous chronicle affirms that she brought with her, when she
returned into France, a woman of whom I have not the least
knowledge, but who was probably handsome, since without beauty such
a merchandise would not have been saleable, nor have answered the
design of the importer; and that she made this way her court to the
Regent. Whatever her merit was, she kept a correspondence with him,
and put herself upon that foot of familiarity which he permits all
those who contribute to his pleasures to assume. She was placed by
him, as she told me herself, where I found her some time after that
which I am speaking of, in the house of an ancient gentlewoman who
had formerly been Maid of Honour to Madame, and who had contracted
at Court a spirit of intrigue which accompanied her in her retreat.

These two had associated to them the Abbe de Tesieu in all the
political parts of their business; for I will not suppose that so
reverend an ecclesiastic entered into any other secret. This Abbe
is the Regent's secretary; and it was chiefly through him that the
private treaty had been carried on between his master and the Earl
of Stair in the King's reign. Whether the priest had stooped at the
lure of a cardinal's hat, or whether he acted the second part by the
same orders that he acted the first, I know not. This is sure, and