finally, after having often passed and repassed the pro and con through my brain, my heart decided the affair, and it was in the Church of Recollects in which I took my final resolution. Never had I felt so much devotion in church, and those who regarded me perceived that I was much absorbed; I believe that God surprised me with His commands. The next day, which was the second of March, I was very gay. If Mademoiselle had been of the age of Juliet, this would have been a pretty romance. But she was perhaps slightly too mature to play with the grand passion. The man who was the cause of these agitations is one of the best-known figures of his times. Traces of him are found in all the contemporary writings. The singularity of his personality joined to the prodigies of his luck, good and bad, had made him an object of interest to his contemporaries. It was of him that La Bruyere said: "No one can guess how he lives."[211] The political world, the ministers at the head, observed him with an anxious attention, because he had accomplished the miracle of becoming the favourite of the King, while possessing precisely the defects which Louis XIV. feared the most. Lauzun did not attain the position of such a favourite as the Constable de Luynes under Louis XIII., but he secured sufficient influence to accumulate offices and honours. Antonin Nompar de Caumont, Marquis de Puyguilhem, later Comte de Lauzun, was born in 1633 (or 1632) of an ancient family of Perigord. His parents had nine children and nothing to give to the younger ones; but their birth assured to this youthful throng access to the Court and hope of aid from it. The third of the boys resembled Poucet in form and also possessed his keenness of mind. It was decided to send him to seek his fortune, not in the forest, as with the hero of the tale, but in the vicinity of the Court of France, the parents being convinced that with his acuteness he would not permit himself to be eaten by the ogre, but would rather succeed in devouring others. The Marechal de Gramont, first cousin of the old Lauzun, saw arrive at his mansion a very little man, with the face of "a flayed cat,"[212] surrounded with flaxen hair, who claimed to be fourteen years of age. This grotesque person was as lively as a sparrow and Gascon to the tips of his fingers.