74 MEMOIES OF THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMON.

" Pardon me/' replied D'Antin; " you do not recollect, then,
that I have an answer to make to you ?"

From this perseverance M. de Vendome comprehended that
something was amiss, quitted his game, and went into an
obscure wardrobe with D'Antin, who told him that he had been
ordered by the King to beg Monseigneur not to invite M. de
Vend&me to Meudon any more ; that his presence there was as
unpleasant to Madame de Bourgogne as it had been at Marly.
Upon this, Vendome, transported with fury, vomited forth all
that his rage inspired him with. He spoke to Monseigneur in
the evening, but was listened to as coldly as before. Vendome
passed the rest of his visit in a rage and embarrassment easy to
conceive, and on the day Monseigneur returned to Versailles he
hurried straight to Anet.

But he was unable to remain quiet anywhere; so went off
with his dogs, under pretence of going a hunting, to pass a
month in his estate of La Ferte-Aleps, where he had no proper
lodging and no society, and gave there free vent to his rage.
Thence he returned again to Anet, where he remained aban-
doned by every one. Into this solitude, into this startling and
public seclusion, incapable of sustaining a fall so complete, after
a long habit of attaining everything, and doing everything
he pleased, of being the idol of the world, of the Court, of the
armies, of making his very vices adored, and his greatest faults-
admired, his defects commended,—so that he dared to conceive
the prodigious design of ruining and destroying the necessary
heir of the Crown, though he had never received anything but
evidences of tenderness from him, and triumphed over him for
eight months with the most scandalous success,—it was, I say,
thus that this Colossus was overthrown by the breath of a
prudent and courageous princess, who earned by this act merited
applause. All who were concerned with her, were charmed to
see of what she was capable; and all who were opposed to her
and her husband trembled. The cabal, so formidable, so lofty,
so accredited, so closely united to overthrow them, and reign,
after the King, under Monseigneur in their place—these chiefs,
male and female, so enterprising and audacious, fell now into