After the death of Queen Marguerite, the house was sold and it
belonged in turn to several Parisian families which occupied it until
1655. Olier turned it to more pious uses than it had known before,
by inhabiting it during the last few years of his life. M. de
Bretonvilliers, his successor, gave it to the Company of St. Sulpice
as a branch for the Paris house. The little pavilion of Queen
Marguerite was not in any way changed, except that the paintings
on the walls were slightly modified. The Venuses were changed into
Virgins, and the Cupids into angels, while the emblematic paintings
with Spanish mottoes in the interstices were left untouched, as they
did not shock the proprieties. A very fine room, the walls of which
were covered with paintings of a secular character, was whitewashed
about half a century ago, but they would perhaps be found uninjured if
this was washed off. The park to which Bouteroue refers in his poem
is unchanged; except that several statues of holy persons have been
placed in it. An arbour with an inscription and two busts marks the
spot where Bossuet and Fenelon, M. Tronson and M. de Noailles had
long conferences upon the subject of Quietism, and agreed upon the
thirty-four articles of the spiritual life, styled the Issy Articles.
Further on, at the end of an avenue of high trees, near the little
cemetery of the Company, is a reproduction of the inside of the Santa
Casa of Loretta, which is a favourite spot with the residents in the
seminary, and which is decorated with the emblematic paintings of
which they are so fond.
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