We two showed each other what we wrote. My husband's was--'Love is
strong as death;' mine--'Let the wife cleave unto her husband.' But
neither of them was drawn out. I saw by the start that Mademoiselle
de Bourbon gave that it was hers, when the first paper was taken out--
'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!' a few minutes were offered to
the young Abbe to collect his thoughts, but he declined them, and he
was led to a sort of a dais at the end of the salon, while the chairs
were placed in a half-circle. Some of the ladies tittered a little,
though Madame de Rambouillet looked grave; but they composed
themselves. We all stood and repeated the Ave, and then seated
ourselves; while the youth, in a voice already full and sweet, began
solemnly: 'What is life? what is man?'
I can never convey to you how this world and all its fleeting follies
seemed to melt away before us, and how each of us felt our soul alone
in the presence of our Maker, as though nothing mattered, or ever
would matter, but how we stood with Him. One hardly dared to draw
one's breath. Mademoiselle de Bourbon was almost stifled with the
sobs she tried to restrain lest her mother should make her retire.
My husband held my hand, and pressed it unseen. He was a deeper,
more thoughtful man ever after he heard that voice, which seemed to
come, as it were, from the Angel at Bochim who warned the Israelites;
and that night we dedicated ourselves to the God who had not let us
be put asunder.
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