liable to the attentions of Louis: she forbade him however to loiter, or
indeed even to be seen in the room appropriated to the young damsels
under her charge; and when attracted by the beauty of Annie Lucie de la
Mothe, Louis was obliged to speak to her through a hole behind a clock
which stood in a corridor.

Annie Lucie, notwithstanding this apparent encouragement of the king's
addresses, was perfectly indifferent to his admiration. She was secretly
attached to the Marquis de Richelieu, who had, or pretended to have,
honourable intentions towards her. Everything was tried, but tried in
vain, to induce the poor girl to give up all her predilections for the
sake of a guilty distinction--that of being the king's mistress: even
her _mother_ reproached her with her coldness. A family council was
held, in hopes of convincing her of her wilfulness, and Annie Lucie was
bitterly reproached by her female relatives; but her heart still clung
to the faithless Marquis de Richelieu, who, however, when he saw that a
royal lover was his rival, meanly withdrew.

Her fall seemed inevitable; but the firmness of Anne of Austria saved
her from her ruin. That queen insisted on her being sent away; and she
resisted even the entreaties of the queen, her daughter-in-law, and the
wife of Louis XIV.; who, for some reasons not explained, entreated that
the young lady might remain at the court. Anne was sent away in a sort
of disgrace to the convent of Chaïllot, which was then considered to be
quite out of Paris, and sufficiently secluded to protect her from
visitors. According to another account, a letter full of reproaches,
which she wrote to the Marquis de Richelieu upbraiding him for his
desertion, had been intercepted.

It was to this young lady that De Grammont, who was then, in the very