who joined in the dark design. They shewed them to the Archbishop, saying, " it was out of "their zeal, and that they were exceeding sorry "that one of their fraternity was an heretic, and as such execrable." They also brought me in, but more moderately, saying, "Father La "Combe was almost always at my house," which was very false; for I could scarce see him but at the confessional, and that for very short spaces. Several other things equally false they liberally gave out of us both.

THEY bethought themselves of one thing further likely to favour their scheme. They knew I had been at Marseilles, and thought they obtained a good foundation for a fresh calumny. They counterfeited a letter from a person at Marseilles (I think I heard it was from the Bishop) addressed to the Archbishop of Paris, or to his official, in which they wrote the blackest and most abominable scandal. Father La Mothe came to try to draw me into his snare, and to make me say, in the presence of the people he had brought, that I had been at Marseilles with Father La Combe. "There are, said he, shocking accounts sent "against you from the Bishop of Marseilles. You "have there fallen into great scandal with Father "La Combe: There are good witnesses of it." I replied with a smile, "The calumny is notably "devised: But it had been proper to know first "whether Father La Combe had been at Mar"seilles, for I do not believe he was ever there in

his life. I was while there, with such and such, "and during that time Father La Combe was la"bouring at Verceil." He was confounded and went off, saying, "There are witnesses of its being true." He went immediately to ask Father Ccc La Combe

La Combe if he had not been at Marseilles. He assured him he never had been there. They were struck with disappointment. They then gave out it was Seisel which was in the letter. Now this Seisel is a place I have never been at, and there is no Bishop there.

FATHER La Mothe and the Provincial carried about their libels, with those propositions of Molinos, from house to house, saying they were the errors of Father La Combe. They plotted together. They determined to take a journey into Savoy, to collect and bring memorials against Father La Combe and me. The Provincial set off, though but newly returned from visiting a province bordering on Savoy, giving a strict charge to Father La Mothe, who was enough inclined without it, to spare no pains or cost to ruin Father La Combe.

THEY plotted with the Official, a man well versed in such artifices. They suborned that woman. She told Father La Combe "that she had "heard wonderful things of me, which had given "her an ardent desire to see me." As she farther told him, that she was in great want and distress, he sent her to me for my charity; I gave her half a louis d'or. At that time she was a stranger to me; but, after a little converse with her, I was struck with horror: Yet I kept it to myself.

A FEW days after, she came again to ask me for something to get herself bled. I told her, " I "had a maid who could do it well, whom I "would get to do it for her." She replied, "that "she was not a person to be bled by any but a surgeon." I then gave her a fifteen penny piece. She took it with disdain, then went and threw it

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to Father La Combe, asking if she was a person to be put off with fifteen pence. But she learned that evening from her husband, that the time, not yet ripe for discovery, required longer dissimula tion. She then came again to Father La Combe to beg his pardon, saying, "it was a rash fit of passion which made her act as she did." She asked him also for the fifteen pence. He told me then nothing of all this; but I had a certainty that she was a wicked hypocrite, bent on some bad design: And so I told Father La Combe, who chid me for it, saying, " It was only my own imagi"nation, that I wanted charity, for she was a "religious woman."

THERE came to me a virtuous young woman, a stranger, who told me she thought herself obliged, as she knew I was intimate with father La Combe, to apprize me that he confessed a woman who deceived him. She told me of base things that woman had done, and of her thefts at Paris. I desired her to tell them to him herself. She said she had attempted it; but he told her it was acting not according to charity. In a certain shop that vile woman spoke ill of him, They let him know it, but he seemed not to believe it. She sometimes came to my house. I turned pale at the sight of her. My domestics perceived it, especially one, who felt the same horrors as I did.

CHA P. II. AND III.

[IN these Chapters she relates how the vile persons who were suborned against her were detected by Father La Combe, and particularizes many of the odious scandals which they forged about her. How they wanted to frighten her with the terrors of Memorials being drawn out against her, accusing her of

giving into the errors of some persons condemned by the Church, and would have persuaded her to a sudden flight, in order that they might thereby have the fuller opportunity of proving her guilty. She continues thus:]

Ar length La Mothe took off the mask, and said to me in the church, before La Combe," It is "now, my sister, that you must think of fleeing, you are charged with crimes of a deep dye. I was not moved in the least, but replied with my usual tranquillity, "If I am guilty of such "crimes I cannot be too severely punished; "wherefore I will not flee or go out of the way. "I have made an open profession of dedicating "myself to GOD entirely: And if I have done "things offensive to him, whom I would wish both "to love, and to cause to be loved by the whole "world, even at the expence of my life, I ought "by my punishment to be made an example to "the world: But if I am innocent, for me to flee is not the way for my innocence to be believed."

[SHE here gives a detail of the artifices and snares set on foot to ruin F. La Combe; how they misrepresented him to the King, and procured an order to confine him in his convent till he was examined. How they concealed this order from him, and then made several pretences to bring him publickly out. How they then obtained to have him arrested as a Rebel to the King's orders, and confined to the Bastile, and goes on thus:],

-THOUGH on his trial he appeared quite innocent, and they could not find any thing whereupon to ground a condemnation, yet they made the King believe he was a dangerous man in the

article

article of religion. He was then shut up in a certain fortress of that great prison for life: But as his enemies heard that, the captain in that fortress esteemed him, and treated him kindly, they got him removed into a much worse place. GOD, who beholds every thing, will reward every man according to his works. I know by an interior communication that he is very well content, and fully resigned to God.

LA MOTHE now endeavoured more than ever to induce me to flee, assuring me that, if I went to Montargis, I should be out of all trouble; but that if I did not, I should pay for it. He insisted on my taking himself for my director, which I could not agree to. He decried me wherever he went, and writ to his brethren to do the same. They writ me very abusive letters, and particu larly that, if I did not put myself under his direc tion, I was undone. I have the letters by me still. One Father desired me in this case to make a virtue of necessity. Nay some advised me to pretend to put myself under his direction, and to deceive him; whereas I abhorred the thought of a disguise or deceit. I bore every thing with the greatest tranquillity, without taking any care to justify or defend myself, leaving it entirely to God to order as he should please about me: And herein he was graciously pleased to increase the peace of my soul, while every one seemed to cry against me, and to look on me as an infamous creature, except those few who knew me well by a near union of spirit. At church I heard people behind me exclaim against me, and even some priests say, "It was necessary to cast me out of the church." I left myself to GOD without reserve, being quite ready to endure the most rigorous pains and tortures, if such were his will.

I NEVER