Mademoiselle Querouaille ere long inspired passions, rumours of which reached the ears of the old wool-merchant. Fearing lest his daughter might but too thoughtlessly respond to the attentions of which she was the object, he withdrew her from the boarding-house, and took her to Paris, where he left her under the care of his sister-in-law, then a widow. Her husband had been a dependent of the Duke de Beaufort, and she herself lived, for the most part, upon the bounty of that nobleman, who, on reconciling himself with the Court after the Fronde, had obtained the post of high-admiral of France. Shortly after the arrival of Louise in Paris, in 1669, the Duke seeing her walking in the Tuileries gardens with her relative, and being struck with the young girl's beauty, and moreover it is said with the effect which she produced upon the public, became suddenly enamoured of her. The author of the _Histoire secrete_ relates the manoeuvres resorted to by Beaufort and Louise to deceive the vigilance, more affected than real, as it would seem, of her old aunt. In short, the Duke's passion made rapid progress; and the young girl, yielding to the wishes of a lover who adored her and heaped magnificent presents upon her, allowed herself to be carried off by him at the moment that he was about to enter upon his naval command. That expedition had for its object the succour of the Venetians, who for some twenty-four years had been blockaded by the Turks in Candia. Mademoiselle Querouaille, disguised as a page, embarked with the Duke, who, shortly after landing, was cut to pieces in action. An officer of the French force, whom the before-cited chronicle merely designates as a marquis, and to whom Beaufort had confided the secret of his love, offered to conduct Louise back to France. It appears that Mademoiselle Querouaille would have preferred to have been accompanied on her return by a certain smart page who had been in the Duke's service, but the marquis did not give her the option of such a choice. Yet, though Louise could not withdraw herself from the protection of the latter, there is no reason to believe that he forced his love upon her. The anonymous chronicler concedes that much; but, in his opinion, the Marquis might have hoped that Louise would have acknowledged his care and respect by the same favours which she had accorded to "Beaufort, and," he adds, "one may presume that a girl who previously, urged by love, had allowed the Duke to carry her off to Candia, could do no less for a man who showed her so much attention on the voyage back to France." More or less just as these inductions may be, it appears quite certain that this same prank of Mademoiselle Querouaille was the foundation of her fortunes. In giving his friends an account of the expedition in which he had taken part, the Marquis did not omit the episode of the Duke de Beaufort's pretended page. Henrietta of England, to whom this romantic tale was