Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/156

134 The deputy minister then showed her the letter of the spy Jesuit and that of the perfidious bailiff.

"What!" said she with astonishment, "are there such monsters upon earth? and would they force me to marry the stupid son of a ridiculous, wicked man? and is it upon such evidence that the fate of citizens is determined?"

She threw herself upon her knees and with a flood of tears solicited the freedom of a brave man who adored her. Her charms appeared to the greatest advantage in such a situation. She was so beautiful that St. Pouange, bereft of all shame, used words with some reserve, which brought on others less delicate, which were succeeded by those still more expressive. The revocation of the lettre de cachet was proposed, and he at length went so far as to state the only means of obtaining the liberty of the man whose interest she had so violently and affectionately at heart.

This uncommon conversation continued for a long time. The devotee in the anti-chamber, in reading her "Christian Pedagogue," said to herself:

"My lord St. Pouange never before gave so long an audience. Perhaps he has refused everything to this poor girl and she is still entreating him."

At length her companion came out of the closet in the greatest confusion, without being able to speak. She was lost in deep meditation upon the character of the great and the half-great, who so