The annals of tribunals, and historical records, afford
abundant and indisputable proofs of the truth of this
picture." When devotion (or hypocrisy,) had become
the fashion at court, " the lady gamblers, (says a con-
temporary writer,) upon separating, pronounced a
formula, by which they reciprocally made each other a
present of" such gains as they might have acquired by
cheating ! This mode of defrauding God, practiced by
so many pious harpies, even in the very apartments of
Madame de Maintenon, appeared to me an eminently
characteristic trait." The mixture of bigotry and liber
tinism, prevalent at the end of the 17th century, was
most curious. Compliance with the forms of religion,
with fasts and penitence, was held far more important
than a virtuous life. Louis XIY.'s son, known as the



BURIAL OT LOUIS xir. 75

grand -dauphin, considered it one of the blackest of
crimes to eat meat on a fast-day. During Lent he sent
to Paris for one of his mistresses, an actress named
Raisin ; and when she came he gave her nothing to
eat but salad and bread fried in oil, imagining that a
[sin avoided expiated a sin committed ! The king's
brother, eating a biscuit,'said to the Abbe Feuillet, a
canon of St: Cloud, " This is not breaking the fast."
" Eat a calf, (replied the priest, with a frankness and
honesty rare at that time,) and be a Christian ! " It was
the age of hypocrisy and outward observance. The
husk of religion was offered to God ; the grain was
nowhere. People went daily to church ; there to talk
and laugh, and see their friends.
