Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/769

 Her daughter, Mademoiselle de Blois, was married to the Prince of Conti; her son, Louis of Bourbon, Count of Vermandois, died at the siege of Courtrai, in 1683. "Alas, my God!" said La Vallière, when informed of her misfortune, "must I weep for his death, before my tears have expiated his birth?" She died in 1710, at the age of sixty-six.

She was much beloved for her meekness, gentleness, and beneficence. She is considered the author of "Réflexions sur la Miséricorde de Dieu."  VANHOMRIGH, ESTHER, VANESSA, name given in playfulness to Miss Vanhomrigh, by Dean Swift, and by which, through her connexion with him, she will descend to future times. Esther Vanhomrigh was the daughter of a widow lady in affluent circumstances, in whose house Swift was domesticated when he was in London. Of her personal charms little has been said; Swift has left them unsung, and other authorities have rather depreciated them. When Swift became intimate in the family, she was not twenty years old; lively and graceful, yet with a greater inclination for leading and mental cultivation, than is usually combined with a gay temper. This last attribute had fatal attractions for Swift, who, in intercourse with his female friends, had a marked pleasure in directing their studies, and acting as their literary mentor; a dangerous character for him who assumes it, when genius, docility, and gratitude are combined in a young and interesting pupil. Miss Vanhomrigh, in the meanwhile, sensible of the pleasure which Swift received from her society, and of the advantages of youth and fortune which she possessed, and ignorant of the peculiar circumstances which bound him to another, yielded to the admiration with which he had inspired her, and naturally looked forward to becoming his wife. Swift, however, according to that singular and mysterious line of conduct which he had laid down for himself, had no such intention of rewarding her affection; he affected blindness to her passion, and persisted in placing their intercourse upon the footing of friendship—the regard of pupil and teacher.

The imprudence—to use no stronger term—of continuing such an intercourse behind the specious veil of friendship, was soon exhibited. Miss Vanhomrigh, a woman of strong and impetuous feelings, rent asunder the veil, by intimating to Swift the state of her affections. In his celebrated poem, in which he relates this fact, he has expressed the "shame, disappointment, guilt, surprise," which he experienced at this crisis; but, instead of answering it with a candid avowal of his engagements with Stella—or other impediments, which prevented his accepting her hand and fortune—he answered the confession, at first in raillery, and afterwards by an offer of devoted and everlasting friendship, founded on the basis of virtuous esteem. Vanessa was neither contented nor silenced by the result of her declaration; but, almost to the close of her life, persisted in endeavouring, by entreaties and arguments, to extort a more lively return to her passion. The letters of Vanessa to Swift, after his return to Ireland, are filled with reproaches for his coldness and indifference, combined with the most open and compassionate expressions of attachment; whilst his replies betray evident annoyance, and a settled purpose to repress these unreserved proofs of devotion. It