fourth daughter had two beggars of the parish for god-parents, as a
constant reminder of humility. The same child was of a violent and
willful disposition, but was converted at the age of eleven and became
mild, patient, and studious. The conversion of so young a sinner, and
the seriousness with which the event was treated by the family, seem
rather to belong to the atmosphere of Puritanism than to that of the
Catholicism of the eighteenth century. But if the religion of the
Duchess of Ayen sometimes led her to fantastic extremes, these were not
its principal characteristics. Her piety was applied to the conduct of
her daily life and to the education of her daughters in honesty,
reasonableness, and self-devotion. Their faith and hers were to be
tested by the hardest trials, and to be victorious both in prison and on
the scaffold. We are fortunate in possessing their biographies. In how
many cases at the same time and in the same country did similar virtues
go unrecorded?[Footnote: Vie de Madame de Lafayette, Mme. de Montagu.]

As for the smaller nobility, the "sparrow hawks,"[Footnote: Hoberaux.]
living in the country, they dwelt among their less exalted neighbors,
doing good or evil as the character of each one of them directed.
Sometimes we find them on friendly terms with the villagers, acting as
godfathers and godmothers to the children, summoning the peasants to
take part in the chase, or to dance in the courtyard of the castle. We
find them endowing hospitals, giving alms, keeping an eye on the conduct
of the village priest. A continual interchange of presents goes on
between the cottage and the great house. A new lord is welcomed by
salvos of musketry, the ladies of his family are met by young girls
bearing flowers. Such relations as these are said to have grown less
common as the great Revolution drew near. It has often been remarked of
the Vendee and Brittany, where a larger proportion of lords resided on
their estates than was the case elsewhere, that a friendlier feeling was