Admitted with her mother into the interior of the monastery, Anne-Geneviève filled her soul with the most edifying conversations, the gravest and most touching spectacles. Everywhere she met none but the living already dead and kneeling upon the grave. Here was the tomb of Michel de Marillac, keeper of the seals, who died in exile, at Châteaudun, in that same year, 1632, when Richelieu beheaded his brother, Marshal de Marillac, uncle of Mademoiselle de Bourbon, Duke de Montmorency; here were the funeral monuments of the two women of the house of Longueville, Marguerite and Catherine d’Orleans. She doubted not that she should one day see buried in this same place her brilliant friend, the famous Julie, Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, now Duchess de Montausier; that she should see carried to this place the heart of Turenne—that heart which, for a moment, she was destined to trouble and dispute with duty and the king; that here several of her own children should also have their tombs, and that here she herself should repose by the side of her mother, Madame the Princess, and of her sister-in-law, the sweet, pure, and graceful Anne-Marie Martinozzi, Princess de Conti.⁠[116]

Mademoiselle de Bourbon wished, in her turn, to be one of the benefactresses of the Carmelites, and to make such presents as would please them. She obtained from Pope Urban VII. the relics of seven martyr virgins, with a brief of the Holy Father attesting their authenticity, and that the names of each of these victims of faith had been found entire, or abbreviated on the stone that held their bodies inclosed in the catacombs. Let us transport ourselves to those times; let us place ourselves in a convent of the Carmelites, and we shall form some idea of the holy joy which filled the house on witnessing the arrival of this magnificent and august present. Queen Anne, touched with a pious emulation, placed with them some relics of Saint Paule, a Roman dame, and an illustrious friend of Saint Jerome. The body of Saint Rosalie, a grandchild of France, had just been found at Palermo. M. d’Alincourt obtained it, and sent it as an offering. Mademoiselle de Bourbon placed all these relics in a silver shrine, made in the form of a dome, surmounted by a lantern, and surrounded by four figures, representing the Evangelists.

The Duke d’Enghien seeing his sister, whom he adored, and whose spirit he knew, thus occupied with embellishing and enriching the convent of the Carmelites, where he was sometimes taken, felt his honor piqued, and wished to make his offering also. In order to divert him during his recovery from a severe illness, various curiosities of the day were brought and shown to him in his chamber, and among other things a reliquary, admirable for its design and richness. The Duke d’Enghien asked the purpose of this masterpiece. The goldsmith replied that it was for the Carmelites of the Rue Saint-Jacques, but that, not being in a condition to pay for such a piece of workmanship, they had left it on his hands. The young duke exclaimed that he wished the Carmelites could have this beautiful reliquary, and he found a very good way of realizing his wish. He took a purse in hand, and, extolling the curiosity, which he kept concealed, refused to show it to those who came to visit him, unless some pieces of gold or silver were put in his purse; and he succeeded in procuring the sum demanded, which was 2,000 louis.⁠[117]

Thus passed the infancy and the youth of Mademoiselle de Bourbon, in the midst of the spectacles and practice of a true and profound piety. We must not be surprised, then, that this piety should at length induce her to renounce the world and become a Carmelite. She who was one day to be the ardent disciple and the intrepid protector of Port-Royal, was then in the hands of a Jesuit, Father Le Jeune. He encouraged her design; but in vain she addressed the most earnest supplications to her father, the Prince de Condé. Having other views in regard to his daughter, he complained to Madame the Princess; and in order to break the charm that attached Anne-Geneviève to the Carmelites, it was decided that she should be taken oftener into society. Mademoiselle de Bourbon obeyed; but, her mind being still filled with the images and the discourses of the Rue Saint-Jacques, she took no pleasure in these brilliant assemblages. When her mother found fault with her poor success, Mademoiselle de Bourbon is said to have replied to her:⁠[118] “You have, madame, such touching graces, that, as I simply attend you, and appear after you, I am not noticed.” This manner of justifying herself appeased Madame the Princess, who, in spite of her devotion, willingly suffered herself to be reminded that she had been and was still very beautiful.

Mademoiselle de Bourbon, during several years, followed her inclination; and, in order to make her renounce it, it was necessary to do her a sort of violence. Thus far she had found means of escaping the ball. Madame the Princess was obliged to employ her authority to make her go; and three days before its occurrence, she was commanded to prepare herself for it.

“Her first movement,” says Villefore,⁠[119] “was to go and tell this news to her good friends the Carmelites, who were very much afflicted at it, and embarrassed in replying to her, for she asked their advice as to her conduct at so difficult a conjuncture. A council was held in due form, over which presided, in religious habit, two excellent virtues, Penitence and Prudence; and it was resolved that Mademoiselle de Bourbon, before going to the assault, should arm her self, under her clothing, with a small cuirass, vulgarly called a hair-cloth, and that she should then lend herself, in good faith, to all the finery that was designed for her. As soon as her consent was obtained, every thing was resorted to that could most enliven her natural graces, and nothing was forgotten to ornament a beauty more brilliant by its own splendor than by all the jewels with which it was loaded. The Carmelites had strongly recommended her to be on her guard, but her self-confidence misled her. From the moment she entered the ball-room, and as long as she remained there, the eyes of the whole assembly were fixed upon her. Admirers flocked about her, lavishing those subtle praises that easily lay hold of a newly enkindled self-love, which is suspicious of nothing.... On retiring from the ball, she felt her heart agitated by new emotions: she was no longer the same person.”

It would not be without interest to know something about that ball where Mademoiselle de Bourbon was carried away as a victim, where she appeared to conquer, and which she left intoxicated; but Villefore gives us no information respecting it. We are therefore reduced to conjecture. Here is one which we give for what it is worth. We read in the manuscript memoirs of André d’Ormesson, and in the Gazette de France, of Renaudot,⁠[120] that, February 18, 1635, there was given at the Louvre, under King Louis XIII., a grand ball, in which figured all the beauties of the day, and among the rest Mademoiselle de Bourbon. Observe that it is the first court-ball in which the name of Mademoiselle de Bourbon is found, both in d’Ormesson and the Gazette. Again, that the great violence, an account of which has been preserved for us by Villefore, could have been shown to the princess only on an occasion that demanded the infliction, and for a royal ball. If this conjecture were admitted, we should have the precise date of the conversion of Mademoiselle de Bourbon to worldly life, as we have of the date of her conversion to the religious life, which is certainly August 2, 1654, when she was thirty-five years of age: the first would be February 18, 1635, when Mademoiselle de Bourbon was sixteen.

It is to very near this age of Madame de Longueville that these words of Madame de Motteville refer: “Mademoiselle de Bourbon began, although very young, to exhibit the first charms of that angelic face which has since had such renown.” In order to judge how faithful this slight sketch is, one must go to Versailles and see a portrait, by an old and excellent master, named Ducayer, representing Mademoiselle de Bourbon, at the age of fifteen years, by the side of her father and her mother, in 1634. She is here seen in all the freshness of her virgin beauty, but in court attire, and as if going to that ball which she so much dreaded, and which changed her soul and her life.

Mademoiselle de Bourbon did not, however, forget her friends of the convent of the Carmelites, and continued to visit them. Thus far she had experienced but one sentiment; from that time she had two,—love of God and of the Carmelites, with a taste for worldly success. She preserved the same piety, but that piety was henceforth combated by the desire of pleasure, the need of loving and being loved, the wish for applause upon that stage where she witnessed the success of so many persons who had neither her mirth, nor her spirit, nor her face. This combat continued a long time. We have letters addressed by her to the Carmelites, and in a tone of the most lively piety, even when she was allowing herself to be most carried away by her passions. Accuse neither her sincerity, nor the inefficacy of the best principles. We are really sincere when we express sentiments that are really in the heart, although we may not have strength to follow them; and these noble sentiments have also the precious advantage of mingling with our faults a remnant of virtue that hinders us from sinking to the bottom of the abyss, of uniting therewith a beneficent remorse that sustains the moral life, and of almost always achieving a triumphant restoration to well-doing. Let them sleep for a season in the soul of Madame de Longueville. There they will never be extinguished. At some future day they will be awakened, and we shall return to the convent of the Carmelites, in the Rue Saint-Jacques. But it is necessary to quit it, in order to follow Mademoiselle de Bourbon to the court, to Chantilly, to Ruel, to Liancourt, among beautiful companions, amid agreeable promenades, taking part in gallant conversations. We shall follow her first to Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, to the hôtel de Rambouillet.