But see and wonder at the linking of fates: Among the young ladies who were being educated at Saint-Cyr at that date was Marie-Anne de Buonaparte, born at Ajaccio, January 3, 1771, and received at the Institution in June, 1784. Her brother Napoléon de Buonaparte, an officer of artillery, observing that after August 10 the decrees of the Legislative Assembly seemed to announce, or rather to confirm, the ruin of the house, went to that house on the morning of September 1, 1792, and took such active steps towards the mayor of the village and the administrators of Versailles that he was enabled on the same day to take away his sister (of whom he was the guardian) and carry her to his family in Corsica. He was destined not to return to Saint-Cyr, converted by him into a French Prytaneum, until June 28, 1805, when as Emperor and master of all France he gazed--an equal to an equal--on Louis XIV. In 1793 the devastated Saint-Cyr lost for a time its very name, and the ruined village was called Val-Libre. In 1794, while persons were converting the church into a hospital, the tomb of Mme. de Maintenon was discovered in the choir, broken open, the coffin violated, and her remains insulted. On that day, at least, she was treated as a queen. * * * * * [Mme. de Maintenon was a voluminous letter-writer; many hundreds of her letters are published, the most interesting of which are those to the Princesse des Ursins. Her style is simple, easy, and dignified; not graphic nor lifelike; she seems too rounded into her own mind and views to be a good general observer; nor is she guided in her judgment of others by a perception of their feelings, unless they are reflected by her own. This remark does not apply to the Saint-Cyr letters; in those she is genuine, she is writing on a topic that fills her heart and opens it to others. Saint-Cyr was an episode in Mme. de Maintenon's life, and as such it can be placed here with some completeness. The last chapter of this volume contains a few miscellaneous letters bearing more especially upon the character and career of the Duchesse de Bourgogne, which Sainte-Beuve asserts can only be truly known through the letters of Mme. de Maintenon to the Princesse des Ursins.