Portraits of the Seventeenth Century, Historic and Literary (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ...who had so deeply felt it in the order of human feelings, was now to say them to herself in the path of her heavenward progress. We perceive, toward the end of the "Reflections," eager soarings of a tender love about to transform itself into a divine passion, and into charity. The "semi-repentant woman," as she calls herself, is wholly occupied in persuading her soul to transport, to transpose her love; that soul must turn and render to God alone that which it had wasted on a god of earth: "It loves thee, O Lord, with a keen and loving sorrow for its past unfaithfulness, and with all the respect and religious trembling that is due to thy sovereign Majesty." In estimating a writing of this simplicity, talent and imagination, properly so-called, cannot fairly be brought into the question. Two or three passages alone give a rather figurative and vivid impression; "If it is true, Lord, that the prayer of a Carmelite who has retired into solitude and no longer does ought but fill herself with thee, is like a sweet perfume-box which needs only to be held to the fire to give forth its fragrant odour, that of a poor creature who is still attached to earth, and who can only creep in the path of virtue is like those muddy waters that must be distilled little by little to make a useful liquor of them." The letters of Mme. de La Valliere to the Marechal de Bellefonds, and those of Bossuet to the same marechal on the subject of Mme. de La Valliere, complete the interior picture of her conversion. The Marechal de Bellefonds, a man of worth and piety, had a sister who was a nun in the Carmelite convent of the Fauboug Saint-Jacques, where Mme. de La Valliere had a project of retiring. He exhorted and strengthened, as best he could, t...