No ordinary character of a man was the first husband of Françoise d’Aubigné, the woman he so sincerely loved and admired, so disinterestedly loved, that he would, had she desired, have denied himself the happiness of living in her society—for he had offered her the choice of placing her _en pension_ in a convent at the expense of his own scanty incomings. Driven from his rights as a child, gifted with great wit and talent, and a generous kindliness, he was beloved by a large circle of friends. First the victim of cruel, iniquitous neglect, oftentimes his own enemy, the crosses of life never blighted the gifts of his intellect, or, it may be added, of his industry. In straitened conditions touching on absolute poverty, the _gaieté du cœur_ of Paul Scarron never forsook him, and if he could have lived a while longer, for his own sake, as he certainly would for hers for whose future he was ever anxious—he said with that labouring dying breath, that he could not have supposed it so easy to make a joke of death. He had composed his own epitaph long before— “He who lies sleeping here beneath, Scant envy but great pity won, A thousand times he suffered death, Or ere his life was lost and done. Oh, Stranger, as you pass, tread light, Awaken not his slumbers deep, For this, bethink you’s the first night That poor Scarron is getting sleep.” A terrible event—that thrilled society, and indeed everyone, with horror—occurred in the South of France about this time. To the Court at Paris it struck especially home; inasmuch as the victim of the fiendish perpetrators of the crime was the Marquise de Castellana, at the time of her presentation at Versailles. She was then very young. She brought her husband, a grandson of the Duc de Villars, an immense fortune, and her beauty was so remarkable as to distinguish her amid the many beautiful women of the young kings Court. Louis, indeed, showed her marked attentions, and she was known as the beautiful Provençale. Very soon, however, the marquis, who was in the naval service, perished in a shipwreck; and a crowd of young and titled men flocked around the lovely young widow as suitors for her hand. Her choice fell on young Lanède, Marquis de Ganges, and for the first year or so of their married life they were very happy in their home at Avignon. Then slight disagreements arose between them. He began to yield to dissipation, while he accused her of coquetry. More than that he could not apparently bring against her. He had two brothers, the Abbé and the Chevalier de Ganges, and both these men fell deeply in love with their beautiful sister-in-law. In his capacity of a churchman, the young wife confided many of her thoughts and her affairs to the abbé. This he used as a tool to influence his brother, the marquis, as it better suited his own designs, either to ruffle his anger against her, or to smooth it. Then one day he pleaded his own passion to her. She repulsed him.