His
gratitude soon received the additions of esteem and admiration, and
the young disciple felt the growth of desires which it is difficult to
believe were real, but which became so pressing, that they revived in
a heart nearly extinct a feeble spark of that fire with which it had
formerly burned. Mademoiselle de l'Enclos refused to accede to the
desires of her lover until she was fully eighty years of age, a term
which did not cool the ardor of the amorous Abbe, who waited
impatiently and on her eightieth birthday compelled his benefactress
to keep her word.
This incident recalls the testimony of a celebrated Countess of
Salisbury, who was called to testify as an expert upon the subject of
love in a celebrated criminal case that was tried over a hundred years
ago in the English House of Lords. The woman correspondent was of an
age when human passion is supposed to be extinct, and her counsel was
attempting to prove that fact to relieve her from the charge. The
testimony of the aged Countess, who was herself over seventy-five
years of age, was very unsatisfactory, and the court put this question
to her demanding an explicit answer.
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