ANNE DE MONTMORENCY, THE SOLITARY OF THE PYRENEES.
ABOUT the year 1666, a young lady of the family of Montmorency, one of the most ancient and illustrious in France, disappeared at the age of fifteen from her father's house, because projects were being formed for her establishment, and she believed herself called to a different state of life. After having in vain endeavoured to alter the views of her family respecting her, she entreated permission one day to make a pilgrimage to Mount Valerian, near Paris, where were the stations of our Lord's Passion. When she reached that which represents our Lord on the cross, she implored Him whom she had chosen for her spouse, with many tears, to save her from the danger of being ever unfaithful to Him, and to teach her how to live from thenceforth as His own bride, unknown, and crucified with Him, with her body and soul given up entirely to His charge, and her whole being abandoned to the care of Providence.
With her mind full of these holy thoughts, she came down from the mountain, and without well knowing what she was going to do, she turned her steps towards the Bois de Boulogne; and when she reached the Abbey of Longchamp, feeling a strong impulse to enter the church, she dismissed for some hours the confidential attendants by whom she was accompanied, saying that she had still many prayers to recite; and accordingly they left her without suspicion to finish her devotions. No sooner were they out of sight than she left the church; and committing herself to our Blessed Lord and His Holy Mother, plunged into the recesses of the wood. She was following by mere chance an unfrequented path, when she met a poor woman, who asked alms of her. This encounter appeared to her an indication of the will of Heaven: she formed her plan in an instant, and began to put it into execution, by taking the clothes of the poor beggar, and giving her own in exchange; and to complete the disguise, she stained her hands and face with clay, and tried to disfigure herself as much as possible. She then turned in the direction contrary to that in which she thought pursuit would first be made; walked all the rest of the day, and found herself in the evening in a village situate on the Seine, some leagues from Paris. There she was met by some charitable ecclesiastics, who, touched by her youth, and the dangers to which it exposed her, took an interest in her situation, and found her first a temporary asylum, and afterwards a situation with a lady in the neighbourhood, who was very rich, and whose service was safe and respectable, as she was devout and regular in her conduct; but she was a difficult person to live with, being of a sharp and worrying temper, so that she had never been able to keep long either a man or maid-servant. Into this house, however, Jane Margaret, by which name only she was known, entered as lady's-maid; but as no servant but herself could remain, she found herself at the age of sixteen obliged to be cook and housemaid and porteress all at once. What consoled and even rejoiced her in this situation was the opportunity it afforded her of satisfying her thirst for crosses and humiliations, and also her freedom from all intrusion of idle curiosity, so that she felt her secret safe. She endured all the fatigues of so laborious a situation, and all the caprices of a harshness in temper, with unalterable patience and sweetness until her mistress's death; that is to say, for the space of ten years. And so faultless was her, conduct during all this time, that her mistress, on her death bed, publicly begged her pardon for all she had made her suffer, and insisted on leaving her the sum of four thousand francs in addition to her wages, of which she had as yet scarcely received any thing. Jane Margaret was with difficulty persuaded to accept this present, and when it was forced upon her, she distributed it among the poor, with the exception of a very small sum which she kept for her immediate wants. Feeling, however, that such extraordinary liberality on the part of a mere maid-servant would excite suspicion and endanger her secret, she resolved to escape the peril as soon as possible.