He
cast about to see whom he could select. The Duc de Beauvilliers had
eight daughters; a misfortune, it may be thought, in France or anywhere
else. Not at all: three of the young ladies were kept at home, to be
married; the other five were at once disposed of, as they passed the
unconscious age of infancy, in convents. Saint-Simon was, however,
disappointed. He offered, indeed; first for the eldest, who was not then
fifteen years old; and finding that she had a vocation for a conventual
life, went on to the third, and was going through the whole family, when
he was convinced that his suit was impossible. The eldest daughter
happened to be a disciple of Fenelon's, and was on the very eve of being
vowed to heaven.
Saint-Simon went off to La Trappe, to console himself for his
disappointment. There had been an old intimacy between Monsieur La
Trappe and the father of Saint-Simon; and this friendship had induced
him to buy an estate close to the ancient abbey where La Trappe still
existed. The friendship became hereditary; and Saint-Simon, though still
a youth, revered and loved the penitent recluse of _Ferte au Vidame_, of
which Lamartine has written so grand and so poetical a description.
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