Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/858

842844 [sic] however, persuaded him that, as it was an engagement his parents had constrained him to enter into, it was not binding; and he set on foot a process to rid him of his wife; but being too impatient to wait the decision of the law, he ordered the banns of marriage to be published, and went to Cambray to join his regiment, where he was soon followed by Mademoiselle des Jardins.

Whether they were married or not, they both came back to Paris, and appeared under the name of Villedieu; but he left her, and was killed soon after, in the army. She now pursued her literary taste without interruption, and composed many pieces by which she gained much applause; amongst others, the tragi-comedy called La Favori; but the death of a particular friend affected her mind, so that she determined to retire into a convent: she did so, and lived there some time, an exemplary life, till a brother of one of the nuns, who had formerly known her, indiscreetly related to his sister the adventures of Madame de Villedieu; upon which they thought her an improper person to be admitted into their society. She was dismissed, and found an asylum in the house of her sister-in-law.

The Marquis de la Chatte, about sixty years of age, was soon entangled by her charms and coquetry. He offered to marry her, though he had a wife alive in Provence, and she accepted him. The marchioness had a son, to whom the dauphin, and Madame de Montpensier, stood sponsors; the child lived but a year, and its death was soon followed by that of the marquis. She appeared at first quite inconsolable; but it is most extraordinary, she quitted the name of De la Chatte for that of Villedieu. After some time spent in study, she returned to a little village in which her mother had lived after the death of her husband; and there ended her