Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/150

128 Having learned from him that her lover had been carried off after having had a conference with one of the clerks, she flew to this clerk. The sight of a fine woman softened him, for it must be allowed God created woman only to tame mankind.

The scribe, thus mollified, acknowledged to her everything.

"Your lover has been in the Bastille almost a year, and without your intercession he would, perhaps, have ended his days there."

The tender Miss St. Yves swooned at this intelligence. When she had recovered herself her informer told her:

"I have no power to do good; all my influence extends to doing harm. Take my advice, wait upon M. de St. Pouange, who has the power of doing both good and ill; he is M. de Louvois' cousin and favorite. This minister has two souls; the one is M. de St. Pouange, and Mademoiselle de Belle is the other, but she is at present absent from Versailles; so that you have nothing to do but captivate the protector I have pointed out to you."

The beautiful Miss St. Yves, divided between some trifling joy and excessive grief, between a glimmering of hope and dreadful apprehensions—pursued by her brother, idolizing her lover, wiping her tears, which flowed in torrents; trembling and feeble, yet summoning all her courage—in this situation, she flew on the wings of love to M. de St. Pouange's.