In the midst of all the disagreeable circumstances of her lot, she was not without some consolation. She kept up her relation with the family of Montaigne, and went on a visit to them in Guyenne, where she remained fifteen months. In all her distress, Mademoiselle Montaigne and her daughter, Mademoiselle de Gamaches, never deserted her. There is a touching passage in one of her works, in which the name of the "bonne amye" is mentioned. There is little doubt but that it refers to one of these ladies; it is as follows: "If my condition be somewhat better than could have been expected, from the miserable remnant of fortune that remained to me after the quittance of all my debts, liabilities, and losses, it is the assistance of a good friend, who took pleasure to see me keep up a decent appearance, which is the cause of it." Mademoiselle de Gournay also brightened the dull realities of her existence with brilliant ideas of the fame she was laying up for herself with posterity--hopes which neither Mademoiselle Jamyn nor Piallion were likely to damp. In 1626, she published a collection of her works, in prose and verse, which she entitled "L'Ombre de Mademoiselle de Gournay," and sat in her retirement expecting the rebound of the sensation she had no doubt of producing throughout Europe. The book was written in imitation of Montaigne's "Essays"--all manner of subjects treated of, without any regard to order or arrangement; long dissertations, rambling from topic to topic in every chapter, without any rule but her own caprice. It may be imagined what advantage such a work would give to those disposed to find matter for ridicule; the spirit of mystification and love of hoaxing were not extinct. There was a pitiless clique of idle men attached to the Court, and circulating in society, who were always on the watch for victims, at whose expense they might make good stories, or whom they might make the subjects of a practical jest. Mademoiselle de Gournay had fallen into their snares years before, and she seemed a still more tempting victim now. A regular conspiracy of wicked wits was formed against the poor old woman, who was then not much under sixty years of age. Her vanity had grown to enormous magnitude; her credulity was in proportion; while her power of swallowing and digesting any flattery, however gross, was something fabulous. No tribute that could be offered exceeded her notion of her own deserts. She certainly offered fair game for ridicule, and she was not spared. Louis the Thirteenth, who labored under the royal malady of ennui, enjoyed the accounts of the mystifications that were constantly put upon the poor old lady.