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and of personal appearance. Monsieur, the brother of Lewis XIV. when he was about 12 years old, occasionally indulged a fancy he bad of assuming the female garb. The Abbé, about the same age, possessed the like inclination; and as they were often together, they would, both dress themselves as girls and appear at the theatres, &c. When the Abbé de Choisy was about eighteen, he determined to go and reside some time at Bourges in Berry, a province distant from Paris, in the disguise of a woman. He took with him only two domestics on whose fidelity he could rely, and settled. himself at Bourges as a young and rich widow under the name of the Countess des. Barres. He furnished an elegant house; kept many servants; and made choice of acquaintance among the nobility of the neighbourhood, from whose families he took opportunity to seduce several young ladies of distinction, and others whose mo-thers encouraged them to pay frequent visits: to the supposed. Countess, pleased with the consideration of having trusted them to pass their time with a lady who would instruct

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them in the manners and customs of the fashionable world. The Abbé was related to the Messieurs d'Argensons; and one of them speaks thus of him, in a work entitled des Loisirs d'un Ministre, pages 89 and 90, Vol. II. "One of the manuscripts left me by my cousin the Abbé de Choisy, contains memoirs of himself when he passed for the Countess des Barres. In reading it, one finds many things hard to be credited. can, however, vouch for their truth. The old man, a long time after having written the lives of David and Solomon, the history of the church, and his other works of edification, used to recount to me these follies with unspeakable pleasure."

166. CARDINAL DU PERRON, AND CARDINAL RICHELIEU.

The contrast between the Abbé Choisy's conduct and writings, calls to mind the like instances in the two Cardinals above-mentioned. Perron affected to be very zealous to make converts from the Protestant religion; he wrote books on the subject, and in his sermons constantly insisted

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upon the perfection of the Catholic church. Yet he died of a disorder disgraceful to any man, and most shameful to a Priest. We learn this from Guy Patin, (see his letters, tom. 1. p. 75), who states that he had it from unquestionable authority. Patin also speaks of three mistresses which Cardinal Richelieu had: one of whom was his own niece, Marie de Vignoret, Duchess d'Aiguillon; the second, the wife of the Marshal de Chaulnes (brother of the Constable de Luynes); and the third, Marion de l'Orme, so celebrated for her beauty, and kept by the unfortunate de Cinqmars, the Marshal de la Meilleraye, and several others, before she was Richelieu's mistress. The Cardinal, however, had also zeal for conversion, and wrote a folio volume on controversy.

167. KINGS OF FRANCE OF AGE AT 13
YEARS OLD.

The Kings of France were supposed to be of age at 14, and that was the maxim ever since the ordonnance of Charles V. of France. But in point of fact, they were declared of age on entering into their

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fourteenth year, and Louis XIII. Louis XIV. and Louis XV. were declared of age at 13 years and one day.

168. THE DILEMMA OF Protagoras.

Protagoras maintained that all is illusion, and that there is no such thing as truth. But Aristotle refuted him by the following dilemina. Your proposition is true, or false if it is false, then you are answered ;` if true, then there is something true, and your proposition fails.

169. SALVATION OF THE GENTILES.

The fathers and learned theologians who have maintained that Pagans will be damned, did not conclude this from the Pagans? want of faith in Jesus Christ, since faith is the gift of God; and St. Paul says (Rom. 2. v. 12), "How shall they believe, to whom "the Gospel is not preached ?"—but that they will be damned for the sins actually committed by them; to which their want of faith adds nothing, merely depriving them of the means by which their sins might be effaced.

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170. TRINITY OF PLATO.

Many writers of the first ages ofthe Christian Church, have expended much labour to find in the writings of Plato passages applicable to the dogma of the Trinity; and among the moderns, Ficinus, Mornay, Vives, and others, have followed their example. But these last have mistaken the object of the fathers of the church; who sought for such passages, less to support the doctrine of the Trinity by an authority of such weight with the Pagans as Plato, than to combat the objections of Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, who treated the opinion as absurd. They endeavoured to shew, that the greatest philosopher among the Pagans entertained an opinion remark-ably corresponding with the notion ridiculed by Celsus, &c. Some indeed, but very few, went a little further and seriously maintained that Plato, treating of the nature of God, had distinguished three persons in the Divinity; and they quote the Epinomis, and the Epistle to Hermias. In the Epinomis

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