Her errors proceeded from an inexhaustible fund of activity, which
demanded perpetual employment. She found no satisfaction in the
customary intrigues of her sex, but, being formed for vast designs,
sought the direction of important enterprises and discoveries. In
her place Madam de Longueville would have been a mere trifler, in
Madam de Longueville's situation she would have governed the state.
Her talents did not accord with her fortune; what would have gained
her distinction in a more elevated sphere, became her ruin. In
enterprises which suited her disposition, she arranged the plan in her
imagination, which was ever carried to its utmost extent, and the
means she employed being proportioned rather to her ideas than
abilities, she failed by the mismanagement of those on whom she
depended, and was ruined where another would scarce have been a loser.
This active disposition, which involved her in so many difficulties,
was at least productive of one benefit as it prevented her from
passing the remainder of her life in the monastic asylum she had
chosen, which she had some thought of. The simple and uniform life
of a nun, and the little cabals and gossipings of their parlor, were
not adapted to a mind vigorous and active, which, every day forming
new systems, had occasion for liberty to attempt their completion.
The good Bishop of Bernex, with less wit than Francis of Sales,
resembled him in many particulars, and Madam de Warrens, whom he loved
to call his daughter, and who was like Madam de Chantel in several
respects, might have increased the resemblance by retiring like her
from the world, had she not been disgusted with the idle trifling of a
convent.
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