Note 114 — Chapter I · 1619 to 1635.

It is worth while to see, in the Abbé Montis, the great resistance which Mademoiselle d’Epernon had to overcome from her brother, the Duke de Candale, and especially from her father, who appealed to the parliament and to the pope; the death of the Duke de Candale, his remains carried to the Carmelites; the conversion of the duke through the instrumentality of his daughter, the finest portions of her life and her pious death. She was one of the benefactresses. Histoire manuscrite, vol. 1st, p. 558. “The gifts bestowed by Anne-Marie de Jésus amounted to more than a hundred and fifty thousand livres. Besides this immense sum, the Duke d’Epernon, her father, dying in 1661, without heirs, bequeathed to it a hundred thousand livres over and above the sixteen thousand which he left as a pious legacy. This lord had already assigned to the house, during the life of our very honored Sister Anne-Marie, three thousand livres pension, finding that the sixteen thousand livres, which were regarded as her dowry, was too slender a sum, and sufficient only to endow a lady who had followed her.” The lady here alluded to, and of whom Mademoiselle also speaks, was named Bouchereau. “Being,” says the Abbé Montis (p. 34), “of an agreeable form, she occupied herself with things quite as fragile; but she finally turned her attention to religion, and, desiring to become a nun, and guessing the views of Mademoiselle d’Epernon, she opened her heart to her, and begged to be allowed to follow her, which was readily granted.” Mademoiselle Bouchereau died during her novitiate, before making a profession.

It is through error that, on the faith of the Abbé Mentis, in the abridged Life of the Mother, joined to that of Mademoiselle d’Epernon, p. 291, the learned editor of the works of Bossuet supposes, vol. xxxiv., p. 690, “the beautiful letter on the Mother Agnès is addressed to Madame d’Epernon, prioress of the Carmelites of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques,” for Mademoiselle d’Epernon—it was thus that she was called—and not Madame d’Epernon, was never prioress. Bossuet wrote to the prioress who succeeded the Mother Agnès, either the Mother Claire du Saint-Sacrement, who died as he entered upon his office; or rather to the one who almost immediately took her place, that is, the Mother Marie du Saint-Sacrement; in the world, Madame de La Thuillerie, who took her vows in 1654, was prioress from 1691 to 1700, and died in 1705. Our manuscripts contain several ancient copies of the letter of Bossuet, all bearing the inscription: To the Mother of the Saint-Sacrement.

In 1680, Madame de Sévigné, accompanying Mademoiselle to the Carmelites, there saw Mademoiselle d’Epernon, and found her very much altered. Letter of the 5th of January, 1680: “I was yesterday at the convent of the Carmelites with Mademoiselle, who was good enough to ask Madame Lesdiguières to take me there. We entered this holy place. I was delighted with Mother Agnès. She spoke to me of you, whom she seemed to know through her sister (Madame the Marchioness de Villars). I saw Madame de Stuart, beautiful and contented (she made a profession this very year, say our manuscripts, under the name of Sister Marguerite de Saint-Augustin, and died in 1722). I saw Madame d’Epernon.... More than thirty years had elapsed since we had seen one another: she seemed to be horribly changed.”

And nevertheless, without being a great beauty, she was the worthy sister of the beautiful Candale. The convent of the Carmelites possesses several pictures of her. One is quite large, representing her between forty and fifty, pale and sick, but still agreeable. The best and most perfectly preserved, represents her young and charming. Her figure is delicate and graceful, but of that fragile grace which years do not respect. She is painted with a smile upon her lips, and such as she was in the world. It is probably the portrait of Beaubrun, engraved by Edelinck.