Madame de Maintenon lived to be eighty-four, and retained her intellectual faculties to the last, retiring to the Abbey of St. Cyr on the death of the King in 1715, and surviving him but four years.

At this second meeting, Madame bent herself to the deft cross-examination of Rust "Had the Captain Rouille joined St. Cyr as a cadet officer, or had he served in the ranks of the French Army?"

She regretted that the season was so far advanced that the winter representations of Esther, at St. Cyr by the young ladies, were over, but she invited M. Racine for an evening, when Mr. Fellowes took extreme pleasure in his conversation, and he was prevailed on to read some of the scenes.

de St. Cyr with a load on my mind, which for four weeks had weighed there; but before I thus spoke, it was lifted and gone.