Among the many lovers who flocked to the country shrine of the widowed "Queen," was Louis, Duc de Cossé, son of the Maréchal de Brissac, who, although Madame du Barry's senior by nine years, was still in the prime of his manhood--handsome as an Apollo and a model of the courtly graces which distinguished the old _noblesse_ in the day of its greatest pride, which was then so near its tragic downfall. De Cassé had long been a mute worshipper of Louis' beautiful "Queen," and now that she was a free woman he was at last able to pay open homage to her, a homage which she accepted with indifference, for at the time her heart had strayed to Henry Seymour, although in vain. The woman whose beauty had conquered all other men was powerless to raise a flame in the breast of the cold-blooded Englishman; and, realising this, she at last bade him farewell in a letter, pathetic in its tender dignity. "It is idle," she wrote, "to speak of my affection for you--you know it. But what you do not know is my pain. You have not deigned to reassure me about that which most matters to my heart. And so I must believe that my ease of mind, my happiness, are of little importance to you. I am sorry that I should have to allude to them; it is for the last time." It was in this hour of disillusion and humiliation that she turned for solace to de Cossé, whose touching constancy at last found its reward. It was not long before friendship ripened into a love as ardent as his own; and for the first time this fickle beauty, whose heart had been a pawn in the game of ambition, knew what a beautiful and ennobling thing true love is. Those were halcyon days which followed for de Cossé and the lady his loyalty had won; days of sweet meetings and tender partings--of a union of souls which even death was powerless to dissolve. When they could not meet--and de Cossé's duties often kept him from her side--letters were always on the wing between Lucienne and Paris, letters some of which have survived to bring their fragrance to our day. Thus the lover writes, "A thousand thanks, a thousand thanks, dear heart! To-day I shall be with you. Yes, I find my happiness is in being loved by you. I kiss you a thousand times! Good-bye. I love you for ever." In another letter we read, "Yes, dear heart, I desire so ardently to be with you--not in spirit, my thoughts are ever with you, but bodily--that nothing can calm my impatience. Good-bye, my darling. I kiss you many and many times with all my heart." The curious may read at the French Record Office many of these letters written in a bold, flowing hand by de Cossé in the hey-day of his love. The paper is time-stained, the ink is faded; but each sentence still palpitates with the passion that inspired it a century and a quarter ago.