Her intellectual powers and her winning qualities brought many admirers around her; among whom were the Abbé de Vertot, M. Brunel, and M. Rey. None of them, however, made any impression on her heart. With respect to the passion of M. Rey, she makes one of those quiet yet piquant remarks, which are so common in her Memoirs. He was accustomed to escort her back to the convent, when she had been visiting some neighbouring friends. “We had to pass through a large open space,” says she, “and at the beginning of our acquaintance, he used to take his way along the sides. I found now, that he crossed over the middle of it; from which I concluded, that his love was at least diminished in the proportion of the difference between the diagonal and the two sides of a square.” It was not long ere she ceased to be able to speak of love in a sportive tone. She became deeply enamoured of the Marquis de Silly, the brother of a friend. He respected her, and acted the part of a counsellor, and almost a brother, but he could not return her affection: and the unfortunate fair one has touchingly described the sufferings she endured from her idolatrous and hopeless passion. Years elapsed before it was eradicated. This woe was aggravated by another. The death of the prioress, Madame de Grieu, in 1710, obliged her to quit the convent, and threw her without resources on the world. She accompanied to Paris the sister of her late patroness, and found a temporary refuge in the Presentation convent. To the purses of her friends she resolutely determined to make no appeal, while her means of repayment were uncertain, but rather to welcome servitude than forfeit her self-estimation. Her finances and hopes were almost at the lowest ebb, when the report of her astonishing abilities reached the gay, frivolous, and volatile duchess of La Ferté. The duchess was delighted with the idea of getting possession of, and exhibiting, what in fashionable cant phrase is called “a lion.” She could not rest till the new wonder was brought to her; an event which was somewhat retarded by the necessity under which Mademoiselle de Launay was placed, of borrowing decent clothes to appear in. The duchess was one of those persons who are apt to take sudden and violent likings, and she instantly pronounced her to be an absolute prodigy. She lauded her without measure in all quarters, hurried her about from place to place, and showed her off, much in the same way that a remarkably clever monkey is managed by an itinerant exhibitor of wild beasts. Madame de Staal has given an account, which is at once ludicrous and painful, of what she endured at this period. Fortunately for her, she became acquainted with men of talent, and acquired some valuable friends, among whom were Fontenelle and Malazieu.