de La Fayette, whilst quite a child, had serious ideas of becoming a nun; and scruples about being false to her vocation troubled her at court, and even in those conversations in which she reproached herself with taking too much pleasure, Father Coussin, her confessor, who was also the king’s, sought to quiet her conscience; he hoped much from the influence she could exercise over the king; but Mdlle. de La Fayette, feeling herself troubled and perplexed, was urgent. When the Jesuit reported to Louis XIII. the state of his fair young friend’s feelings, the king, with tears in his eyes, replied, “Though I am very sorry she is going away, nevertheless I have no desire to be an obstacle to her vocation; only let her wait until I have left for the army.” She did not wait, however. Their last interview took place at the queen’s, who had no liking for Mdlle. de La Fayette; and, as the king’s carriage went out of the court-yard, the young girl, leaning against the window, turned to one of her companions and said, “Alas! I shall never see him again!” But she did see him again often for some time. He went to see her in her convent, and “remained so long glued to her grating,” says Madame de Motteville, that Cardinal Richelieu, falling a prey to fresh terrors, recommenced his intrigues to tear him from her entirely. And he succeeded.” The king’s affection for Mdlle. d’Hautefort awoke again. She had just rendered the queen an important service. Anne of Austria was secretly corresponding with her two brothers, King Philip IV. and the Cardinal Infante, a correspondence which might well make the king and his minister uneasy, since it was carried on through Madame de Chevreuse, and there was war at the time with Spain. The queen employed for this intercourse a valet named Laporte, who was arrested and thrown into prison. The chancellor removed to Val-de-Grace, whither the queen frequently retired; he questioned the nuns and rummaged Anne of Austria’s cell. She was in mortal anxiety, not knowing what Laporte might say or how to unloose his tongue, so as to keep due pace with her own confessions to the king and the cardinal. Mdlle. d’Hautefort disguised herself as a servant, went straight to the Bastille, and got a letter delivered to Laporte, thanks to the agency of Commander de Jars, her friend, then in prison. The confessions of mistress and agent being thus set in accord, the queen obtained her pardon, but not without having to put up with reproaches and conditions of stern supervision. Madame de Chevreuse took fright, and went to seek refuge in Spain. The king’s inclination towards Mdlle. d’Hautefort revived, without her having an idea of turning it to profit on her own account. “She had so much loftiness of spirit that she could never have brought herself to ask anything for herself and her family; and all that could be wrung from her was to accept what the king and queen were pleased to give her.”