the three Mademoiselles de Sainte Hermine, the daughters of a Villette,
if I am not mistaken, and pretty and graceful all three of them. She had
also brought to her Court, and more particularly attached to her person,
a very pretty child, only daughter of the Marquis de Villette, and
sister, consequently, of the Comte and of the Chevalier de Villette, whom
I have previously mentioned. This swarm of nephews, cousins, and nieces
garnished the armchairs and sofas of her chamber. They served as
comrades and playfellows to the legitimate princes and as pages of honour
to my daughter; and when the carriage of the Marquise came into the
country for her drives, the whole of this pretty colony formed a train
and court for her,--a proof of her credit.

The Marquise had a brother, her elder by four or five years, to whom she
was greatly attached, judging from what we heard her say, and to promote
whom we saw her work from the very first. This brother, who was called
Le Comte d'Aubigne, lacked neither charm nor grace. He even assumed,
when he wished, an excellent manner; but this cavalier, his own master
from his childhood, knew no other law but his own pleasures and desires.
He had made people talk about him in his earliest youth; he awoke the
same buzz of scandal now that he was fifty. Madame de Maintenon, hoping
to reform him, and wishing to constrain him to beget them an heir, made
him consent to the bonds of marriage. She had just discovered a very
pretty heiress of very good family, when he married secretly the daughter
of a mere 'procureur du roi'. The lady in waiting, being unable to undo
what had been done, submitted to this unequal alliance; and as her
sister-in-law, ennobled by her husband, was none the less a countess,
she, too, was presented.

The young person, aged fifteen at the most, was naturally very bashful.
When she found herself in this vast hall, between a double row of persons