As for Marie Manpeou, she came of an old and honourable legal family. Left a widow in 1640, she sought repose, after her numerous maternal duties, only in the practice of asceticism and in works of Christian charity. She lived, in retreat, a life wholly occupied in the giving of alms, the application of remedies and the recitation of prayers. She was one of those strong-minded women who, like Madame Legras and Madame de Miramion, were moved at once to a courageous pity and angelic melancholy by the spectacle of the miseries and crimes of war. The ordering of her life was in almost all respects comparable to that of a Sister of Mercy. Far from rejoicing at the promotion of her sons, it was with deep anxiety that she beheld them captive to the seductions of a world which she knew to be evil. Nicolas especially and his brother, the Abbé Basile, alarmed her by the extent of their ambition. The Comptroller's fall, which disconcerted all France, left her untroubled. On hearing that her son had been cast down from the heights of pomp and power, she is said to have thrown herself upon her knees, exclaiming: "I thank Thee, O my God! I have always prayed to Thee for his salvation: now the path to it is open."[2] This saintly idea implies a perfection which is alarming because it is utterly inhuman: it is difficult to recognize maternal affection thus transfigured and freed from the weakness of the flesh which naturally accompanies it. Yet even this mother, for twenty years dead to the world, was perturbed when she knew that her son's life was threatened. Every day throughout the Comptroller's long trial she was to be seen at the door of the Arsenal, where the Court was sitting, and she petitioned the judges[3] MME. FOUCQUET Que mon fils est heureux, que j'aime sa prison! Il est guéri du moins de ce mortel poison. Par ses malheurs son âme à présent éclairée, Voit comme dans la Cour elle était égarée. Plût à Dieu que sa grâce ouvre si bien ses yeux Qu'il ne les tourne plus que du côté des Cieux. LA REINE MÈRE Il peut, quoique Colbert lui déclare la guerre, Ouvrir encor les yeux du côté de la terre. MME. FOUCQUET Si la terre, Madame, a du péril pour lui, J'aime mieux à mes yeux le voir mort aujourd'hui. (Le livre abominable de 1665 qui courait en manuscript parmi le monde, sous le nom de Molière (comédie en vers sur le procès de Foucquet), découvert et publié sur une copie du temps par Louis-Auguste Ménard. Paris, Firmin Didot et Cie. 1883, 2 vols. Vol. II, p. 116.) The book is neither abominable nor a comedy of any kind. It consists of five Dansenist dialogues in the most insipid style. M. Louis-Auguste Ménard, who attributes this rhymed play to Molière, cannot expect many to share his extraordinary opinion.