The Countess of Soissons, mother of the celebrated Prince Eugene, was a woman whose reputation was already sullied by the stains of political and amorous intrigue. Among the crimes which were attributed to her, was the death of her husband, who died suddenly in 1673. In her early years, before he became enamoured of her sister Mary, Louis had paid her some attentions. It was probably the remembrance of his transient flame that induced him to send to the countess a message, that if she were innocent he advised her to enter the Bastile, in which case he would befriend her, but that, if she were guilty, she might retire wherever she pleased. She replied that she was blameless, but that she could not endure imprisonment. The countess immediately set off for Brussels, and she never returned to France. It would, however, be doing her injustice to conceal, that she offered to come back and justify herself, on condition that she should not be confined while the trial was pending. The condition was not granted, and she died in exile, in 1708. The Duchess of Bouillon, her sister, passed through the ordeal more triumphantly. There is something amusing in the flippant contempt with which she treated her judges. The carriages of nine dukes went in procession with her to the Chambre Ardente, into which she was handed by her husband and the Duke of Vendôme. Before she would take notice of any question that was put to her, she ordered the clerk to minute down, “that she came there solely out of respect to the king’s orders, and not at all to the Chamber, which she would not recognize, because she would not derogate from the privilege of the ducal class.” She then answered, but with no small disdain, the various questions, some of which were, in truth, ridiculous enough. Her reason for going to La Voisin’s house was, she said, that she wished to see the Sibyls, which that female had promised to show her. La Reynie, one of the judges, being absurd enough to ask if she had seen the devil, she replied that she saw him at that moment, that he was very ugly and filthy, and was disguised in the garb of a counsellor of state. As she quitted the court, she said aloud, that she had never before heard so many foolish speeches so gravely uttered. There being nothing more to urge against her than that she had been credulous and sillily curious, no further proceedings were taken by the court, but, angry at her having made laughing-stocks of his magistrates, Louis sent her in exile to Nerac, in the distant province of Guienne.