spirit which had decided that chastity was not a part of natural morals,
did not visit them with very severe condemnation.

If eccentricity sometimes overrode etiquette and even politeness, good
morals and religion not infrequently made a stand against corruption.
There were loving wives and careful mothers among the highest nobility.
Of the Duchess of Ayen we get a description from her children. Her
mansion was in the Rue St. Honore, and had a garden running back almost
to that of the Tuileries (for the Rue de Rivoli was not then in
existence). The house was known for the beauty of its apartments, and
for the superb collection of pictures which it contained. After dinner,
which was served at three o'clock, the duchess would retire to her
bedchamber, a large room hung with crimson damask, and take her place in
a great armchair by the fire. Her books, her work, her snuff-box, were
within reach. She would call her five girls about her. These, on chairs
and footstools, squabbling gently at times for the places next their
mother, would tell of their excursions, their lessons, the little events
of every day. There was nothing frivolous in their education. Their old
nurse had not filled their minds with fairy tales, but with stories from
the Old Testament and with anecdotes of heroic actions.

The pleasures of these girls were simple. Once or twice in a summer they
went on a visit to their grandfather, the Marshal de Noailles at Saint
Germain en Laye. In the autumn they spent a week with their other
grandfather, Monsieur d'Aguesseau at Fresnes. An excursion into the
suburbs, a ride on donkeys on the slopes of Mont Valerien, made up their
innocent dissipations. Their most frivolous excitement was to see their
governess fall off her donkey.

The piety of the duchess might in some respects appear extravagant. Her