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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Volume
+VI., by Madame La Marquise De Montespan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Volume VI.
+       Being the Historic Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV.
+
+Author: Madame La Marquise De Montespan
+
+Release Date: September 29, 2006 [EBook #3852]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIRS OF MADAME LA MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN
+
+Written by Herself
+
+
+Being the Historic Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK 6.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+The Court Travels in Picardy and Flanders.--The Boudoir Navy.--Madame de
+Montespan Is Not Invited.--The King Relates to Her the Delights of the
+Journey.--Reflections of the Marquise.
+
+
+The King, consoled as he was for the death of the Duchesse de Fontanges,
+did not, on that account, return to that sweet and agreeable intimacy
+which had united us for the space of eleven or twelve years.  He
+approached me as one comes to see a person of one's acquaintance, and it
+was more than obvious that his only bond with me was his children.
+
+Being a man who loved pomp and show, he resolved upon a journey in
+Flanders,--a journey destined to furnish him, as well as his Court, with
+numerous and agreeable distractions, and to give fresh alarm to his
+neighbours.
+
+Those "Chambers of Reunion," as they were called, established at Metz and
+at Brisach, competed with each other in despoiling roundly a host of
+great proprietors, under the pretext that their possessions had formerly
+belonged to Alsace, and that this Alsace had been ceded to us by the last
+treaties.  The Prince Palatine of the Rhine saw himself stripped, on this
+occasion, of the greater part of the land which he had inherited from his
+ancestors, and when he would present a memoir on this subject to the
+ministers, M. de Croissy-Colbert answered politely that he was in despair
+at being unable to decide the matter himself; but that the Chambers of
+Metz and Brisach having been instituted to take cognisance of it, it was
+before these solemn tribunals that he must proceed.
+
+The Palatine lost, amongst other things, the entire county of Veldentz,
+which was joined to the church of the Chapter of Verdun.
+
+The King, followed by the Queen and all his Court,--by Monsieur le
+Dauphin, Madame la Dauphine and the legitimate princes, whom their
+households accompanied as well,--set out for Flanders in the month of
+July.  Madame de Maintenon, as lady in waiting, went on this journey; and
+of me, superintendent of the Queen's Council, they did not even speak.
+
+The first town at which this considerable Court stopped was at Boulogne,
+in Picardy, the fortifications of which were being repaired.  On the next
+day the King went on horseback to visit the port of Ambleteuse; thence he
+set out for Calais, following the line of the coast, while the ladies
+took the same course more rapidly.  He inspected the harbours and
+diverted himself by taking a sail in a wherry.  He then betook himself to
+Dunkirk, where the Marquis de Seignelay--son of Colbert--had made ready a
+very fine man-of-war with which to regale their Majesties.  The Chevalier
+de Ury, who commanded her, showed them all the handling of it, which was
+for those ladies, and for the Court, a spectacle as pleasant as it was
+novel.  The whole crew was very smart, and the vessel magnificently
+equipped.  There was a sham fight, and then the vessel was boarded.  The
+King took as much pleasure in this sight as if Fontanges had been the
+heroine of the fete, and our ladies, to please him, made their hands sore
+in applauding.  This naval fight terminated in a great feast, which left
+nothing to be desired in the matter of sumptuousness and delicacy.
+
+On the following day, there was a more formal fight between two frigates,
+which had also been prepared for this amusement.
+
+The King was in a galley as spectator; the Queen was in another.  The
+Chevalier de Lery took the helm of that of the King; the Capitaine de
+Selingue steered that of the Queen.  The sea was calm, and there was just
+enough wind to set the two frigates in motion.  They cannonaded one
+another briskly for an hour, getting the weather gauge in turn; after
+this, the combat came to an end, and they returned to the town to the
+sound of instruments and the noise of cannon.
+
+The King gave large bounties to the crew, as a token of his satisfaction.
+
+The prince was on board his first vessel, when the Earl of Oxford, and
+the Colonel, afterwards the Duke of Marlborough, despatched by the King
+of England, came to pay him a visit of compliment on behalf of that
+sovereign.
+
+The Duke of Villa-Hermosa, Spanish Governor of the Low Countries, paid
+him the same compliment in the name of his master.
+
+Both parties were given audience on this magnificent vessel, where M. de
+Seignelay had raised a sort of throne of immense height.
+
+(All this time Mademoiselle de Fontanges lay in her coffin, recovering
+from her confinement.)
+
+From Dunkirk the Court moved to Ypres, visiting all the places on the
+way, and arrived at Lille in Flanders on the 1st of August.  From Lille,
+where the diversions lasted five or six days, they moved to Valenciennes,
+thence to Condo, meeting everywhere with the same honours, the same
+tokens of gladness.  They returned to Sedan by Le Quenoy, Bouchain,
+Cambrai; and the end of the month of August found the Court once more at
+Versailles.
+
+I profited by this absence to go and breathe a little at my chateau of
+Petit-Bourg, where I was accompanied by Mademoiselle de Blois, and the
+young Comte de Toulouse; after which I betook myself to the mineral
+waters of Bourbonne, for which I have a predilection.
+
+On my return, the King related to me all these frivolous diversions of
+frigates and vessels that I have just mentioned; but with as much fire as
+if he had been but eighteen years old, and with the same cordiality as if
+I might have taken part in amusements from which he had excluded me.
+
+How is it that a clever man can forget the proprieties to such a degree,
+and expose himself to the secret judgments which must be formed of him,
+in spite of himself and however reluctantly?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+The Duchesse d'Orleans.--The Duchesse de Richelieu.--An Epigram of Madame
+de Maintenon.--An Epigram of the King to His Brother.
+
+
+Madame la Dauphine brought into the world a son, christened Louis at the
+font, to whom the King a few moments afterwards gave the title of the
+Duke of Burgundy.  We had become accustomed, little by little, to the
+face of this Dauphine, who (thanks to the counsels and instruction of her
+lady in waiting) adopted French manners promptly enough, succeeded in
+doing her hair in a satisfactory manner, and in making an appearance
+which met with general approval.  Madame de Maintenon, for all her
+politeness and forethought, never succeeded in pleasing her; and these
+two women, obliged to see each other often from their relative positions,
+suffered martyrdom when they met.
+
+The King, who had noticed it, began by resenting it from his
+daughter-in-law.  The latter, proud and haughty, like all these petty
+German royalties, thought herself too great a lady to give way.
+
+Madame de Maintenon had, near the person of the young Bavarian, two
+intermediaries of importance, who did not sing her praises from morn till
+eve.  The one was that Charlotte Elizabeth of Bavaria, whom I have
+already described to the life, who, furious at her personal
+monstrousness, could not as a rule forgive pretty women.  The other was
+the Duchesse de Richelieu, maid of honour to the Princess of Bavaria,
+once the protector of Madame Scarron, and now her antagonist, probably
+out of jealousy.
+
+These two acid tongues had taken possession of the Dauphine,--a character
+naturally prone to jealousy,--and they permitted themselves against the
+lady in waiting all the mockery and all the depreciation that one can
+permit oneself against the absent.
+
+Insinuations and abuse produced their effect so thoroughly that Madame de
+Maintenon grew disgusted with the duties of her office, and with the
+consent of the monarch she no longer appeared at the house of his
+daughter-in-law, except on state and gala occasions.  Madame de Richelieu
+related to me one day the annoyance and mortification of the new
+Marquise.
+
+"Madame d'Orleans came in one day," said she to me, "to Madame la
+Dauphine, where Madame de Maintenon was.  The Princess of the Palais
+Royal, who does not put herself about, as every one knows, greeted only
+the Dauphine and me.  She spoke of her health, which is neither good nor
+bad, and pretended that her gowns were growing too large for her, in
+proof that she was going thin.  'I do not know,' she added, brusquely,
+'what Madame Scarron does; she is always the same.'
+
+"The lady in waiting answered on the spot: 'Madame, no one finds you
+changed, either, and it is always the same thing.'
+
+"The half-polite, half-bantering tone of Madame de Maintenon nonplussed
+the Palatine for the moment; she wished to demand an explanation from the
+lady in waiting.  She took up her muff, without making a courtesy, and
+retired very swiftly."
+
+"I am scarcely, fond of Madame de Maintenon," said I to Madame de
+Richelieu, "but I like her answer exceedingly.  Madame is one of those
+great hermaphrodite bodies which the two sexes recognise and repulse at
+the same time.  She is an aggressive personage, whom her hideous face
+makes one associate naturally, with mastiffs; she is surly, like them,
+and, like them, she exposes herself to the blows of a stick.  It makes
+very little difference to me if she hears from you the portrait I have
+just made of her; you can tell her, and I shall certainly not give you
+the lie."
+
+Monsieur, having come some days afterwards to the King, complained of
+Madame de Maintenon, who, he said, had given offence to his wife.
+
+"You have just made a great mistake," said the King; "you who pride
+yourself on speaking your tongue so well, and I am going to put you
+right.  This is how you ought rather to have expressed yourself: 'I
+complain of Madame de Maintenon, who, by ambiguous words, has given
+offence, or wished to give offence to my wife.'"
+
+Monsieur made up his mind to laugh, and said no more of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+The Marquis de Lauzun at Liberty.--His Conduct to His Wife.--Recovery of
+Mademoiselle.
+
+
+Mademoiselle, having by means of her donations to the Duc du Maine
+obtained, at first, the release, and subsequently the entire liberty of
+Lauzun, wished to go to meet him and to receive him in a superb carriage
+with six horses.  The King had her informed secretly that she should
+manage matters with more moderation; and the King only spoke so because
+he was better informed than any one of the ungrateful aversion of Lauzun
+to Mademoiselle.  No one wished to open her eyes, for she had refused to
+see; time itself had to instruct her, and time, which wears wings,
+arrived at that result quickly enough.
+
+M. de Lauzun was, beyond gainsaying, a man of feeling and courage, but he
+nourished in his heart a limitless ambition, and his head, subject to
+whims and caprices, would not suffer him to follow methodically a fixed
+plan of conduct.  The King had just pardoned him as a favour to his
+cousin; but, knowing him well, he was not at all fond of him.  They had
+disposed of his office of Captain of the Guards and of the other command
+of the 'Becs de Corbins'.  It was decided that Lauzun should not return
+to his employment; but his Majesty charged Monsieur Colbert to make good
+to him the amount and to add to it the arrears.
+
+These different sums, added together, formed a capital of nine hundred
+and eighty thousand francs, which was paid at once in notes on the
+treasury, which were equal in value to ready cash.  On news of this, he
+broke into the most violent rage possible; he was tempted to throw these
+notes into the fire.  It was his offices which he wanted, and not these
+sums, with which he could do nothing.
+
+The King received him with an easy, kind air; he, always a flatterer with
+his lips, cast himself ten times on his knees before the prince, and
+gained nothing by all these demonstrations.  He went to rejoin
+Mademoiselle on the following day at Choisy, and dared to scold her for
+having constructed and even bought this pretty pleasure-house.
+
+"This must have cost treasures," said he.  "Had you not parks and
+chateaus enough?  It would have been better to keep all these sums and
+give them to me now."
+
+After this exordium, he set himself to criticise the coiffure of the
+Queen, on account of the coloured knots that he had remarked in it.
+
+"But you mean, then, to satirise me personally," said the Princess to
+him, "since you see my hair dressed in the same fashion, and I am older
+than my cousin!
+
+"What became of you on leaving the King?"  she asked him.  "I waited for
+you till two hours after midnight."
+
+"I went," said he, "to visit M. de Louvois, who is not my friend, and who
+requires humouring; then to visit M. Colbert, who favours me."
+
+"You ought to have seen Madame de Maintenon, I gave you that advice
+before leaving you," she said; "it is to her, above all, that you owe
+your liberty."
+
+"But your Madame de Maintenon," he resumed, "is she, too, one of the
+powers?  Ah, my God!  what a new geography since I left these regions ten
+years ago!"
+
+To avoid tete-a-tete, M. de Lauzun was always in a surly humour; he put
+his left arm into a sling; he never ceased talking of his rheumatism and
+his pains.
+
+Mademoiselle learned, now from one person, now from another, that he was
+dining to-day with one fair lady, to-morrow with another, and the next
+day with a third.  She finally understood that she was despised and
+tricked; she showed one last generosity (out of pride) towards her former
+friend,--solicited for him the title of Duke, and begged him, for the
+future, to arrange his life to please himself, and to let her alone.
+
+The Marquis de Lauzun took her at her word, and never forgave her for the
+cession of the principalities of Dombes and Eu to M. le Duc du Maine; he
+wanted them for himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+Progress of Madame de Maintenon.--The Anonymous Letter.
+
+
+Since the birth of Mademoiselle de Blois, and the death of Mademoiselle
+de Fontanges, the King hardly ever saw me except a few minutes
+ceremoniously,--a few minutes before and after supper.  He showed himself
+always assiduous with Madame de Maintenon, who, by her animated and
+unflagging talk, had the very profitable secret of keeping him amused.
+Although equally clever, I venture to flatter myself, in the art of
+manipulating speech, I could not stoop to such condescensions.  You
+cannot easily divert when you have a heart and are sincere--a man who
+deserts you, who does not even take the trouble to acknowledge it and
+excuse himself.
+
+The Marquise sailed, then, on the open sea, with all sail set; whilst my
+little barque did little more than tack about near the shore.  One day I
+received the following letter; it was in a pleasant and careful
+handwriting, and orthography was observed with complete regularity, which
+suggested that a man had been its writer, or its editor:
+
+The person who writes these lines, Madame la Marquise, sees you but
+rarely, but is none the less attached to you.  The advice which he is
+going to give you in writing he would have made it a duty to come and
+give you himself; he has been deterred by the fear either of appearing to
+you indiscreet, or of finding you too deeply engrossed with occupations,
+or with visitors, as is so often the case, in your own apartments.
+
+These visitors, this former affluence of greedy and interested hearts,
+you will soon see revealed and diminishing; probably your eyes, which are
+so alert, have already remarked this diminution. The monarch no longer
+loves you; coolness and inconstancy are maladies of the human heart.  In
+the midst of the most splendid health, our King has for some time past
+experienced this malady.
+
+In your place, I should not wait to see myself repudiated.  By whatever
+outward respect such an injunction be accompanied, the bottom of the cup
+is always the same, and the honey at the edge is but a weak palliative.
+Being no ordinary woman by birth, do not terminate like an ordinary
+actress your splendid and magnificent role on this great stage.  Know how
+to leave before the audience is weary; while they can say, when they miss
+you from the scene, "She was still fine in her role.  It is a pity!"
+
+Since a new taste or new caprice of the monarch has led his affections
+away, know how to endure a fantasy which you have not the power to
+remove.  Despatch yourself with a good grace; and let the world believe
+that sober reflections have come to you, and that you return, of your own
+free will, into the paths of independence, of true glory, and of honour.
+
+Your position of superintendent with the Queen has been from the very
+first almost a sinecure.  Give up to Madame de Maintenon, or to any one
+else, a dignity which is of no use to you, for which you will be paid now
+its full value; which, later, is likely to cause you a sensible
+disappointment; for that is always sold at a loss which must be sold at a
+given moment.
+
+Nature, so prodigal to you, Madame la Marquise, has not yet deflowered,
+nor recalled in the least degree, those graces and attractions which were
+lavished on you.  Retire with the honours of war.
+
+Annoyance, vexation, irritation, do not make your veins flow with milk
+and honey; you would lose upon the field of battle all those treasures
+which it is in your power to save.
+
+Adieu, madame.
+
+This communication, though anonymous, is none the less benevolent. I
+desire your peace and your happiness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+Madame de Maintenon at Loggerheads with Madame de Thianges.--The Mint of
+the D'Aubigne Family.--Creme de Negresse, the Elixir of Long
+Life.--Ninon's Secret for Beauty.--The King Would Remain Young or Become
+So.--Good-will of Madame de Maintenon.
+
+
+This letter was not, in my eyes, a masterpiece, but neither was it from a
+vulgar hand.  For a moment I suspected Madame de Maintenon.  She was
+named in it, it is true, as though by the way, but her interest in it was
+easy to discover, since the writer dared to try to induce me to sell her,
+to give up to her, my superintendence.  I communicated my suspicions to
+the Marquise de Thianges.  She said to me: "We must see her,--her face
+expresses her emotions very clearly; she is not good at lying; we shall
+easily extract her secret, and make her blush for her stratagem."
+
+Ibrahim, faithful to his old friendship for me, had recently sent me
+stuffs of Asia and essences of the seraglio, under the pretence of
+politeness and as a remembrance.  I wrote two lines to the Marquise,
+engaging her to come and sacrifice half an hour to me to admire with me
+these curiosities.  Suspecting nothing, she came to my apartments, when
+she accepted some perfumes, and found all these stuffs divine.  My
+sister, Madame de Thianges, said to her:
+
+"Madame, I do not wish to be the last to congratulate you on that
+boundless confidence and friendship that our Queen accords you.
+Assuredly, no one deserves more than you this feeling of preference; it
+appears that the princess is developing, and that, at last, she is taking
+a liking for choice conversation and for wit."
+
+"Madame," answered the lady in waiting, "her Majesty does not prefer me
+to any one here.  You are badly informed.  She has the goodness to accord
+to me a little confidence; and since she finds in me some facility in the
+Spanish tongue, of which she wishes to remain the idolater all her life,
+she loves to speak that tongue with me, catching me up when I go wrong
+either in the pronunciation or the grammar, as she desires to be
+corrected herself when she commits some offence against our French."
+
+"You were born," added Madame de Thianges, "to work at the education of
+kings.  It is true that few governesses or tutors are as amiable.  There
+is a sound in your voice which goes straight to the heart; and what
+others teach rudely or monotonously, you teach musically and almost
+singing.  Since the Queen loves your French and your Spanish, everything
+has been said; you are indispensable to her.  Things being so, I dare to
+propose to you, Madame, a third occupation, which will suit you better
+than anything else in the world, and which will complete the happiness of
+her Majesty.
+
+"Here is Madame de Montespan, who is growing disgusted with grandeur,
+after having recognised its emptiness, who is enthusiastically desiring
+to go and enjoy her House of Saint Joseph, and wishes to get rid of her
+superintendence forthwith, at any cost."
+
+"What!" said Madame de Maintenon.  Then to me, "You wish to sell your
+office without having first assured yourself whether it be pleasing to
+the King?  It appears to me that you are not acting on this occasion with
+the caution with which you are generally credited."
+
+"What need has she of so many preliminary cautions," added the Marquise,
+"if it is to you that she desires to sell it?  Her choice guarantees the
+consent of the princess; your name will make everything easy."
+
+"I reason quite otherwise, Madame la Marquise," replied the former
+governess of the princes; "the Queen may have her ideas.  It is right and
+fitting to find out first her intention and wishes."
+
+"Madame, madame," said my sister then, "everything has been sufficiently
+considered, and even approved of.  You will be the purchaser; you desire
+to buy, it is to you that one desires to sell."
+
+Madame de Maintenon began to laugh, and besought the Marquise to believe
+that she had neither the desire nor the money for that object.
+
+"Money," answered my sister, "will cause you no trouble on this occasion.
+Money has been coined in pour family."
+
+[Constant d'Aubigne, father of Madame de Maintenon, in his wild youth,
+was said to have taken refuge in a den of comers.--Ed. Note]
+
+Madame de Maintenon, profoundly moved, said to the Marquise:
+
+"I thought, madame, that I had come to see Madame de Montespan, to look
+at her stuffs from the seraglio, and not to receive insults.  All your
+teasing affects me, because up to to-day I believed in your kindly
+feeling.  It has been made clear to me now that I must put up with this
+loss; but, whatever be your injustice towards me, I will not depart from
+my customs or from my element.  The superintendence of the Queen's
+Council is for sale, or it is not; either way, it is all the same to me.
+I have never made any claim to this office, and I never shall."
+
+These words, of which I perceived the sincerity, touched me.  I made some
+trifling excuses to the lady in waiting, and, tired of all these
+insignificant mysteries, I went and took the anonymous letter from my
+bureau and showed it to the governess.
+
+She read it thoughtfully.  After having read it, she assured me that this
+script was a riddle to her.
+
+Madame de Maintenon, on leaving us, made quite a deep courtesy to my
+sister, which caused me pain, preserving an icy gravity and exaggerating
+her salutation and her courtesy.
+
+When we were alone, I confessed to the Marquise de Thianges that her
+words had passed all bounds, and that she could have reached her end by
+other means.
+
+"I cannot endure that woman," she answered.  "She knows that you have
+made her, that without you she would be languishing still in her little
+apartment in the Maree; and when for more than a year she sees you
+neglected by the King and almost deserted, she abandons you to your
+destiny, and does not condescend to offer you any consolation.  I have
+mortified her; I do not repent of it in the least, and every time that I
+come across her I shall permit myself that gratification.
+
+"What is she thinking of at her age; with her pretensions to a fine
+figure, an ethereal carriage, and beauty?  And yet it must be admitted
+that her complexion is not made up.  She has the sheen of the lily
+mingled with that of the rose, and her eyes exhibit a smiling vivacity
+which leaves our great coquettes of the day far behind!"
+
+"She is nature unadorned as far as her complexion goes, believe me," said
+I to my sister.  "During my constant journeys she has always slept at my
+side, and her face at waking has always been as at noon and all day long.
+She related to us once at the Marechale d'Albret's, where I knew her,
+that at Martinique--that distant country which was her cradle--an ancient
+negress, well preserved and robust, had been kind enough to take her into
+her dwelling.  This woman led her one day into the woods.  She stripped
+of its bark some shrub, after having sought it a long time.  She grated
+this bark and mixed it with the juice of chosen herbs.  She wrapped up
+all this concoction in half a banana skin, and gave the specific to the
+little D'Aubigne.
+
+"This mess having no nasty taste, the little girl consented to return
+fifteen or twenty times into the grove, where her negress carefully
+composed and served up to her the same feast.
+
+"'Why do you care to give me this green paste?' the young creole asked
+her one day.
+
+"The old woman said: 'My dear child, I cannot wait till you have enough
+sense to learn to understand these plants, for I love you as if you were
+my own daughter, and I want to leave you a secret which will cause you to
+live a long time.  Though I look as I do, I am 138 years old already.  I
+am the oldest person in the colony, and this paste that I make for you
+has preserved my strength and my freshness.  It will produce the same
+effect on my dear little girl, and will keep her young and pretty too for
+a long time.'
+
+"This negress, unhappily, fell asleep one day under a wild pear-tree in
+the Savannah, and a crocodile came out of the river hard by and devoured
+her."
+
+"I have heard tell," replied my sister, "that Mademoiselle d'Aubigne,
+after the death of her mother, or husband, was bound by the ties of a
+close friendship with Ninon de l'Enclos, whose beauty made such a
+sensation among the gallants, and still occupies them.
+
+"One was assured, you know, that Ninon possesses a potion, and that in
+her generosity to her friend, the fair Indian, she lent her her phial of
+elixir."
+
+"No, no," said I to the Marquise, "that piece of gallantry of Ninon is
+only a myth; it is the composition of Martinique, or of the negress,
+which is the real recipe of Madame de Maintenon.  She talked of it one
+day, when I was present, in the King's carriage.  His Majesty said to
+her: 'I am astonished that, with your natural intelligence, you have not
+kept in your mind the nature of this Indian shrub and herbs; with such a
+secret you would be able to-day to make many happy, and there are some
+kings, who, to grow young again, would give you half their empire.'
+
+"'I am not a worshipper of riches,' said this mistress of talk; 'bad
+kings might offer me all the treasures and crowns they liked, and I would
+not make them young again.'
+
+"'And me, madame,' said the prince, 'would you consent to make me young
+again?'
+
+"'You will not need it for a long time,' she replied, cleverly, with a
+smile; 'but when the moment comes, or is near, I should set about it with
+zeal.'
+
+"The whole carriage applauded this reply, and the King took the hand of
+the Marquise and insisted on kissing it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+The Casket of M. de Lauzun.--His Historical Gallery.--He Makes Some
+Nuns.--M. de Lauzun in the Lottery.--The Loser Wins.--Queen out of
+Pique.--Letter from the Queen of Portugal.--The Ingratitude of M. de
+Lauzun.
+
+
+Twice during the captivity of M. de Lauzun the Queen of Portugal had
+charged her ambassador to carry to the King that young sovereign's
+solicitations in favour of the disgraced gentleman.  Each time the
+negotiators had been answered with vague and ambiguous words; with those
+promises which potentates are not chary of, even between themselves, and
+which we poor mortals of the second rank call Court holy water.  These
+exertions of the Court of Lisbon were speedily discovered, and it then
+became known how many women of high degree M. de Peguilain had the honour
+of fluttering.  The officer of D'Artagnan, who had the task of seizing
+his papers when he was arrested to be taken to Pignerol, was obliged, in
+the course of his duty, to open a rather large casket, where he found the
+portraits of more than sixty women, of whom the greater number lived
+almost in the odour of sanctity.  There were descriptive or biographical
+notes upon all these heroines, and correspondence to match.  His Majesty
+had cognisance of it, and forbade the publication of the names.  But the
+Marquis d'Artagnan and his subordinate officer committed some almost
+inevitable indiscretions, and all these ladies found their names public
+property.  Several of them, who were either widows or young ladies,
+retired into convents, not daring to show their faces in the light of
+day.
+
+The Queen of Portugal, before this scandal, had passionately loved the
+Marquis de Lauzun.  She was then called Mademoiselle d'Aumale, and her
+sister who was soon afterwards Duchess of Savoy was called at Paris
+Mademoiselle de Nemours.  These two princesses, after having exchanged
+confidences and confessions, were astonished and grieved to find
+themselves antagonists and rivals.  Happily they had a saving wit, both
+of them, and made a treaty of peace, by which it was recognised and
+agreed that, since their patrimony was small, it should be neither
+divided nor drawn upon, in order that it might make of M. de Lauzun, when
+he came to marry, a rich man and a great lord.  The two rivals, in the
+excess of their love, stipulated that this indivisible inheritance should
+be drawn for by lot, that the victorious number should have M. de Lauzun
+thrown in, and that the losing number should go and bury herself in a
+convent.
+
+Mademoiselle d'Aumale--that is to say, the pretty blonde--won M. de
+Lauzun; but he, being bizarre in his tastes, and who only had a fancy for
+the brunette (the less charming of the two), went and besought the King
+to refuse his consent.
+
+Mademoiselle d'Aumale thought of dying of grief and pique, and, as a
+consequence of her despair, listened to the proposals of the King of
+Portugal, and consented to take a crown.
+
+The disgrace and imprisonment of her old friend having reached her ear,
+this princess gave him the honour of her tears, although she had two
+husbands alive.  Twice she had solicited his liberty, which was certainly
+not granted in answer to her prayers.
+
+When she learned of the release of the prisoner, she showed her joy
+publicly at it, in the middle of her Court; wrote her congratulations
+upon it to Mademoiselle, apparently to annoy her, and, a few days
+afterwards, indited with her own hand the letter you are going to read,
+addressed to the King, which was variously criticised.
+
+TO HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF FRANCE.
+
+BROTHER:--Kings owe one another no account of their motives of action,
+especially when their authority falls heavily upon the officers of their
+own palace, till then invested with their confidence and overwhelmed with
+the tokens of their kindness.  The disgrace of the Marquis de Lauzun can
+only appear in my eyes an act of justice, coming as it does from the
+justest of sovereigns.  So I confined myself in the past to soliciting
+for this lord--gifted with all the talents, with bravery and merit--your
+Majesty's pity and indulgence.  He owed later the end of his suffering,
+not to my instances, but to your magnanimity.  I rejoice at the change in
+his destiny, and I have charged my ambassador at your Court to express my
+sincere participation in it.  To-day, Sire, I beg you to accept my
+thanks.  M. de Lauzun, so they assure me, has not been restored to his
+offices, and though still young, does not obtain employment in his
+country, where men of feeling and of talent are innumerable. Allow us,
+Sire, to summon this exceptional gentleman to my State, where French
+officers win easily the kindly feelings of my nobles, accustomed as they
+are to cherish all that is born in your illustrious Empire.  I will give
+M. de Lauzun a command worthy of him, worthy of me,--a command that will
+enable him to render lasting and essential services to my Crown and to
+yours.  Do not refuse me this favour, which does not at all impoverish
+your armies, and which may be of use to a kingdom of which you are the
+protector and the friend. Accept, Sire, etc.
+
+I did not see the answer which was vouchsafed to this singular letter;
+the King did not judge me worthy to enjoy such confidence that he had
+made no difficulty in granting to me formerly; but he confided in Madame
+de Maintenon, and even charged her to obtain the opinion of Mademoiselle
+touching this matter, and Mademoiselle, who never hid aught from me,
+brought the details of it to my country-house.
+
+This Princess, now enlightened as to the falseness of Monsieur de Lauzun,
+entreated the King to give up this gentleman to the blond Queen, or to
+give him a command himself.
+
+The Marquis de Lauzun, having learnt the steps taken by the Queen of
+Portugal, whom he had never been able to endure, grew violently angry,
+and said in twenty houses that he had not come out of one prison to throw
+himself into another.
+
+These were all the thanks the Queen got for her efforts; and, like
+Mademoiselle de Montpensier, she detested, with all her soul, the man she
+had loved with all her heart.
+
+The Marquis de Lauzun was one of the handsomest men in the world; but his
+character spoiled everything.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+The Nephews, the Nieces, the Cousins and the Brother of Madame de
+Maintenon.--The King's Debut.--The Marshal's Silver Staff.
+
+
+The family of Madame de Maintenon had not only neglected but despised her
+when she was poor and living on her pension of two thousand francs. Since
+my protection and favour had brought her into contact with the sun that
+gives life to all things, and this radiant star had shed on-her his own
+proper rays and light, all her relatives in the direct, oblique, and
+collateral line had remembered her, and one saw no one but them in her
+antechambers, in her chamber, and at Court.
+
+Some of them were not examples of deportment and good breeding; they were
+gentlemen who had spent all their lives in little castles in Angoumois
+and Poitou, a kind of noble ploughmen, who had only their silver swords
+to distinguish them from their vine-growers and herds.  Others, to be
+just, honoured the new position of the Marquise; and amongst those I must
+place first the Marquis de Langallerie and the two sons of the Marquis de
+Villette, his cousin, german.  The Abbe d'Aubigne, whom she had
+discovered obscurely hidden among the priests of Saint Sulpice, she had
+herself presented to the King, who had discovered in him the air of an
+apostle, and then to Pere de la Chaise, who had hastened to make him
+Archbishop of Rouen, reserving for him 'in petto' the cardinal's hat, if
+the favour of the lady in waiting was maintained.
+
+Among her lady relatives who had come from the provinces at the rumour of
+this favour, the Marquise distinguished and exhibited with satisfaction
+the three Mademoiselles de Sainte Hermine, the daughters of a Villette,
+if I am not mistaken, and pretty and graceful all three of them.  She had
+also brought to her Court, and more particularly attached to her person,
+a very pretty child, only daughter of the Marquis de Villette, and
+sister, consequently, of the Comte and of the Chevalier de Villette, whom
+I have previously mentioned.  This swarm of nephews, cousins, and nieces
+garnished the armchairs and sofas of her chamber.  They served as
+comrades and playfellows to the legitimate princes and as pages of honour
+to my daughter; and when the carriage of the Marquise came into the
+country for her drives, the whole of this pretty colony formed a train
+and court for her,--a proof of her credit.
+
+The Marquise had a brother, her elder by four or five years, to whom she
+was greatly attached, judging from what we heard her say, and to promote
+whom we saw her work from the very first.  This brother, who was called
+Le Comte d'Aubigne, lacked neither charm nor grace.  He even assumed,
+when he wished, an excellent manner; but this cavalier, his own master
+from his childhood, knew no other law but his own pleasures and desires.
+He had made people talk about him in his earliest youth; he awoke the
+same buzz of scandal now that he was fifty.  Madame de Maintenon, hoping
+to reform him, and wishing to constrain him to beget them an heir, made
+him consent to the bonds of marriage.  She had just discovered a very
+pretty heiress of very good family, when he married secretly the daughter
+of a mere 'procureur du roi'.  The lady in waiting, being unable to undo
+what had been done, submitted to this unequal alliance; and as her
+sister-in-law, ennobled by her husband, was none the less a countess,
+she, too, was presented.
+
+The young person, aged fifteen at the most, was naturally very bashful.
+When she found herself in this vast hall, between a double row of persons
+of importance, whose fixed gaze never left her, she forgot all the bows,
+all the elaborate courtesies,--in fine, all the difficult procedure of a
+formal presentation, that her sister-in-law and dancing-masters had been
+making her rehearse for twenty days past.
+
+The child lost her head, and burst into tears.  The King took compassion
+on her, and despatched the Comtesse de Merinville to go and act as her
+guide or mistress.  Supported by this guardian angel, Madame d'Aubigne
+gained heart; she went through her pausing, her interrupted courtesies,
+to the end, and came in fairly good countenance to the King's chair, who
+smiled encouragement upon her.  While these things were taking place in
+the gallery, Madame de Maintenon, in despair, her eyes full of tears, had
+to make an effort not to weep.  With that wit of which she is so proud,
+she should have been the first to laugh at this piece of childishness,
+which was not particularly new.  The embarrassment, the torture in which
+I saw her, filled me with a strong desire to laugh.  It was noticed; it
+was held a crime; and his Majesty himself was kind enough to scold me for
+it.
+
+"I felt the same embarrassment," he said to us, "the first time Monsieur
+le Cardinal desired to put me forward.  It was a question of receiving an
+ambassador, and of making a short reply to his ceremonial address.  I
+knew my reply by heart; it was not more than eight or ten lines at the
+most.  I was repeating it every minute while at play, for five or six
+days.  When it was necessary to perform in person before this throng, my
+childish memory was confused.  All my part was forgotten in my fear, and
+I could only utter these words: 'Your address, Monsieur
+Ambassadeur,--Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, your address.'  My mother, the
+Queen, grew very red, and was as confused as I was.  But my godfather,
+the Cardinal, finished this reply for me, which he had composed himself,
+and was pleased to see me out of the difficulty."
+
+This anecdote, evidently related to console the Marquise, filled her with
+gratitude.  They spoke of nothing else at Versailles for two days; after
+which, Madame la Comtesse d'Aubigne became, in her turn, a woman of
+experience, who judged the new debutantes severely, perhaps, every time
+that the occasion arose.
+
+The Comte d'Aubigne passed from an inferior government to a government of
+some importance.  He made himself beloved by endorsing a thousand
+petitions destined for his sister, the monarch's friend; but his
+immoderate expenditure caused him to contract debts that his sister would
+only pay five or six times.
+
+The Duc de Vivonne, my brother, laughed at him in society; he unceasingly
+outraged by his clumsiness his sister's sense of discretion.  One day, in
+a gaming-house, seeing the table covered with gold, the Marshal exclaimed
+at the door: "I will wager that D'Aubigne is here, and makes all this
+display; it is a magnificence worthy of him."
+
+"Yes, truly," said the brother of the favourite; "I have received my
+silver staff, you see!"  That was an uncouth impertinence, for assuredly
+M. de Vivonne had not owed this dignity to my favour.  The siege of
+Candia, and a thousand other distinguished actions, in which he had
+immortalised himself, called him to this exalted position, which I dare
+to say he has even rendered illustrious.
+
+The Comte d'Aubigne's saying was no less successful on that account, and
+his sister, who did not approve at all of this scandalous scene, had the
+good sense to condemn her most ridiculous gamester, and to make excuses
+for him to my brother and me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+Political Intrigue in Hungary.--Dignity of the King of the Romans.--The
+Good Appearance of a German Prince.--The Turks at Vienna.--The Duc de
+Lorraine.--The King of Rome.
+
+
+Whatever the conduct of the King may have been towards me, I do not write
+out of resentment or to avenge myself.  But in the midst of the peace
+which the leisure that he has given me leaves me, I feel some
+satisfaction in inditing the memoirs of my life, which was attached to
+his so closely, and wish to relate with sincerity the things I have seen.
+What would be the use of memoirs from which sincerity were absent?  Whom
+could they inspire with a desire of reading them?
+
+The King was born profoundly ambitious.  All the actions of his public
+life bore witness to it.  It would be useless for him to rebut the
+charge; all his aims, all his political work, all his sieges, all his
+battles, all his bloody exploits prove it.  He had robbed the Emperor of
+an immense quantity of towns and territories in succession.  The
+greatness of the House of Austria irritated him.  He had begun by
+weakening it in order to dominate it; and, in bringing it under his sway,
+he hoped to draw to himself the respect and submission of the Germanic
+Electoral body, and cause the Imperial Crown to pass to his house, as
+soon as the occasion should present itself.
+
+We had often heard him say: "Monseigneur has all the good appearance of a
+German prince."  This singular compliment, this praise, was not without
+motive.  The King wished that this opinion and this portrait should go
+straight into Germany, and create there a kind of naturalisation and
+adoption for his son.
+
+He had resolved to have him elected and proclaimed King of the Romans, a
+dignity which opens, as one knows, the road to the imperial greatness. To
+attain this result, his Majesty, seconded perfectly by his minister,
+Louvois, employed the following means.
+
+By his order M. de Louvois sent the Comte de Nointel to Vienna, at the
+moment when that Power was working to extend the twenty years' truce
+concluded by Hungary with the Sultan.  The French envoy promised secretly
+his adhesion to the Turks; and the latter, delighted at the intervention
+of the French, became so overbearing towards the Imperial Crown that that
+Power was reduced to refusing too severe conditions.
+
+Sustained by the insinuations and the promises of France, the Sultan
+demanded that Hungary should be left in the state in which it was in
+1655; that henceforward that kingdom should pay him an annual tribute of
+fifty thousand florins; that the fortifications of Leopoldstadt and Gratz
+should be destroyed; that the chief of the revolted towns--Nitria, Eckof,
+the Island of Schutt, and the fort of Murann, at Tekelai--should be
+ceded; that there should be a general amnesty and restitution of their
+estates, dignities, offices, and privileges without restriction.
+
+By this the infidels would have found themselves masters of the whole of
+Hungary, and would have been able to come to the very gates of Vienna,
+without fear of military commanders or of the Emperor.  It was obvious
+that they were only seeking a pretext for a quarrel, and that at the
+suggestion of France, which was quite disposed to profit by the occasion.
+
+The Sultan knew very little of our King.  The latter had his army ready;
+his plan was to enter, or rather to fall upon, the imperial territories,
+when the consternation and the danger in them should be at their height;
+and then he counted on turning to his advantage the good-will of the
+German princes, who, to be extricated from their difficulty, would not
+fail to offer to himself, as liberator, the Imperial Crown, or, at least,
+the dignity of King of the Romans and Vicar of the Empire to his son,
+Monseigneur le Dauphin.
+
+In effect, hostilities had hardly commenced on the part of the Turks,
+hardly had their first successes, struck terror into the heart of the
+German Empire, when the King, the real political author of these
+disasters, proposed to the German Emperor to intervene suddenly, as
+auxiliary, and even to restore Lorraine to him, and his new conquests, on
+condition that the dignity of the King of the Romans should be bestowed
+on his son.  France, this election once proclaimed, engaged herself to
+bring an army of 60,000 men, nominally of the King of the Romans, into
+Hungary, to drive out utterly the common enemy.  German officers would be
+admitted, like French, into this Roman army; and more, the King of France
+and the new King of the Romans engaged themselves to set back the
+imperial frontiers on that side as far as Belgrade, or Weissembourg in
+Greece.  A powerful fleet was to appear in the Mediterranean to support
+these operations; and the King, wishing to crown his generosity, offered
+to renounce forever the ancient possessions, and all the rights of
+Charlemagne, his acknowledged forefather or ancestor.
+
+Whilst these dreams of ambition were being seriously presented to the
+unhappy Imperial Court of Vienna, the Turks, to the number of 300,000
+men, had swept across Hungary like a torrent.  They arrived before the
+capital of the Empire of Germany just at the moment when the Court had
+left it.  They immediately invested this panic-stricken town, and the
+inhabitants of Vienna believed themselves lost.  But the young Duc de
+Lorraine, our King's implacable enemy, had left the capital in the best
+condition and pitched outside Vienna, in a position from which he could
+severely harass the besieging Turks.
+
+He tormented them, he raided them, while he waited for the saving
+reinforcements which were to be brought up by the King of Poland, and the
+natural allies of the Empire.  This succour arrived at last, and after
+four or five combats, well directed and most bloody, they threw the
+Ottomans into disorder.  The Duc de Lorraine immortalised himself during
+this brilliant campaign, which he finished by annihilating the Turks near
+Barkan.
+
+France had remained in a state of inaction in the midst of all these
+great events.  I saw the discomfiture of our ministers and the King when
+the success of the Imperialists reached them.  But the time had passed
+when my affections and those of my master were akin.  Free from
+henceforth to follow the impulses of my conscience and of my sense of
+justice, I rejoiced sincerely at the great qualities of the poor Duc de
+Lorraine, and at the humiliation of the cruel Turks, who had been so
+misled.
+
+The elective princes of the Germanic Empire once more rallied round their
+august head, and disavowed almost all their secret communications with
+the Cabinet of Versailles.  The Emperor, having escaped from these great
+perils, addressed some noble and touching complaints to our monarch; and
+Monseigneur was not elected King of the Romans,--a disappointment which
+he hardly noticed, and by which he was very little disturbed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+The Prince of Orange.--The Orange Coach.--The Bowls of Oranges.--The
+Orange Blossoms.--The Town of Orange.--Jesuits of Orange.--Revocation of
+the Edict of Nantes.
+
+
+The King, by the last peace, signed at Nimegue, had engaged to restore
+the Principality of Orange to William, Stadtholder and Generalissimo of
+the Dutch.  This article was one of those which he had found most
+repugnant to him, for nothing can be compared with the profound aversion
+which the mere name inspired in the monarch.  He pushed this hatred so
+far that, having one day noticed from the heights of his balcony a superb
+new equipage, of which the body was painted with orange-coloured varnish,
+he sent and asked the name of the owner; and, on their reporting to him
+that this coach belonged to a provincial intendant, a relative
+of the Chancellor, his Majesty said, the same evening, to the
+magistrate-minister: "Your relative ought to show more discretion in the
+choice of the colours he displays."
+
+This coach appeared no more, and the silk and cloth mercers had their
+stuffs redyed.
+
+Another day, at the high table, the King, seeing four bowls of big
+oranges brought in, said aloud before the public: "Take away that fruit,
+which has nothing in its favour but its look.  There is nothing more
+dangerous or unhealthy."
+
+On the morrow these words spread through the capital, and the courtiers
+dared eat oranges only privately and in secret.
+
+As for me, with my love for the scent of orange blossoms, the monarch's
+petulance once more affected me extremely.  I was obliged for some time
+to give it up, like the others, and take to amber, the favourite scent of
+my master, which my nerves could not endure.
+
+Before surrendering the town of Orange to the commissioners of the
+kinglet of the Dutch, the King of France had the walls thrown down, all
+the fortifications razed, and the public buildings, certain convents, and
+the library of the town stripped of their works of art.  These measures
+irritated Prince William, who, on that account alone, wished to
+recommence the war; but the Emperor and the allies heard his complaints
+with little attention.  They even besought him to leave things as they
+were.  M. d'Orange is a real firebrand; he could not endure the
+severities of the King without reprisals, and no sooner was he once more
+in possession of his little isolated sovereignty than he annoyed the
+Catholics in it, caused all possible alarms to the sisters of mercy and
+nuns, imposed enormous taxes on the monks, and drove out the Jesuits with
+unheard-of insults.
+
+The King received hospitably all these humiliated or persecuted folk; and
+as he was given to understand that the Orange Protestants were secretly
+sowing discontent amongst his Calvinists and French Lutherans, he
+prepared the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the famous political
+measure the abrogation of which took place a short time afterwards.
+
+I saw, in the hands of the King, a document of sixty pages, printed at
+Orange, after its restitution, in which it was clearly specified that
+Hugh Capet had set himself on the throne irregularly, and in which the
+author went to the point of saying that the Catholic religion was only an
+idolatry, and that the peoples would only be happy and free after the
+general introduction of the Reformation.  The Marechal de Vivonne came
+and told me, in strict confidence, that the Jesuits, out of resentment,
+had forged this document, and printed the pamphlet themselves; but M. de
+Louvois, who, through his father, the Chancellor, and his brother, the
+Archbishop of Rheims, was associated with them, maintained that the
+incendiary libel was really the work of the Protestants.
+
+My residence at the Court having opened my eyes sufficiently to the
+wickedness of men, I will not give my opinion, amid these angry charges
+and recriminations.  I confine myself to relating what I have seen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+Sickness.--Death of the Queen.--Her Last Words.--The King's
+Affliction.--His Saying.--Second Anonymous Letter.--Conversation with La
+Dauphine.--Madame de Maintenon Intervenes.
+
+
+While the Turks and the Imperialists were fighting in the plains of
+Hungary, the King, followed by all his Court, had made his way towards
+the frontiers of Alsace.  He reviewed countless battalions, he made
+promotions, and gave brilliant repasts and fetes.
+
+The season was a little trying, and the Queen, though born in Spain, did
+not accommodate herself to the June heat.  As soon as business permitted
+they took the road to the capital, and returned to Versailles with some
+speed.
+
+Scarcely had they arrived, when the Queen fell ill; it did not deserve
+the name of sickness.  It was only an indisposition, pure and simple,--an
+abscess in the armpit; that was all.  Fagon, the boldest and most
+audacious of all who ever exercised the art of AEsculapius, decided that,
+to lessen the running, it was necessary to draw the blood to another
+quarter.  In spite of the opinion of his colleagues, he ordered her to be
+bled, and all her blood rushed to her heart.  In a short time the
+princess grew worse in an alarming fashion, and in a few moments we heard
+that she was in her death-agony; in a few moments more we heard of her
+death.
+
+The King wept bitterly at first, as we had seen him weep for Marie de
+Mancini, Louise de la Valliere, Henrietta of England, and the Duchesse de
+Fontanges,--dead of his excesses.  He set out at once for the Chateau of
+Saint Cloud, which belonged to his brother; and Monsieur, wishing to
+leave the field clear for him, went away to the Palais Royal with his
+disagreeable wife and their numerous children.
+
+His Majesty returned two days afterwards to the Chateau of Versailles,
+where he, his son, and all the family sprinkled holy water over the
+deceased; and this little ceremony being finished, they regained in
+silence the Chateau of Saint Cloud.
+
+The aspect of that gloomy Salon of Peace, converted into a catafalque;
+the sight of that small bier, on which a beautiful, good, and indulgent
+wife was reposing; those silent images, so full of speech, awoke the just
+remorse of the King.  His tears began once more to flow abundantly, and
+he was heard to say these words:
+
+"Dear, kind friend, this is the first grief you have caused me in twenty
+years!"
+
+The Infanta, as I have already related, had granted in these latter days
+her entire confidence and affection to her daughter-in-law's lady in
+waiting.  Finding herself sick and in danger, she summoned Madame de
+Maintenon; and understanding soon that those famous Court physicians did
+not know how ill she was, and that she was drawing near her last hour,
+she begged this woman, so ready in all things, to leave her no more, and
+to be good enough to prepare her for death.
+
+The Marquise wept bitterly, and perhaps even sincerely; for being unable
+to foresee, at that period, all that was to befall her in the issue, she
+probably entertained the hope of attaching herself for good to this
+excellent princess.  In losing her, she foresaw, or feared, if not
+adversity, at least a decline.
+
+The King was courting her, it is true, and favouring her already with
+marked respect; but Francoise d'Aubigne,--thoughtful and meditative as I
+knew her to be, could certainly not have failed to appreciate the
+voluptuous and inconstant character of the monarch.  She had seen several
+notorious friendships collapse in succession; and it is not at the age of
+forty-six or forty-seven that one can build castles in Spain to dwell in
+with young love.
+
+The Queen, before the beginning of her death agony, herself drew a
+splendid ring from her finger, and would pass it over the finger of the
+Marquise, to whom, some months before, she had already given her
+portrait.  It was asserted that her last words were these: "Adieu, my
+dearest Marquise; to you I recommend and confide the King."
+
+In accordance with a recommendation so binding and so precise, Madame de
+Maintenon followed the monarch to Saint Cloud; and as great afflictions
+are fain to be understood and shared, these two desolate hearts shut
+themselves up in one room, in order to groan in concert.
+
+The Queen having been taken to Saint Denis, the King, Madame de
+Maintenon, and the Court returned to Versailles, where the royal family
+went into mourning for the period prescribed by law and custom.
+
+The Queen's large and small apartments, so handsome, new, splendid, and
+magnificent, became the habitation of Madame la Dauphine; so that the
+lady in waiting, in virtue of her office, returned in the most natural
+manner to those apartments where she had held authority.
+
+The Queen, without having the genius of conversation and discussion,
+lacked neither aplomb nor a taste for the proprieties; she knew how to
+support, or, at least, to preside over a circle.  The young Dauphine had
+neither the desire, nor the patience, nor, the tact.
+
+The prince charged the lady in waiting to do these things for her.  We
+repaired in full dress to the Princess,--to present our homages to Madame
+de Maintenon.  One must admit she threw her heart into it; that is to
+say, she drew out, as far as possible, the monarch's daughter-in-law,
+inspiring into her every moment amiable questions or answers, which she
+had taken pains to embellish and adorn in her best manner.
+
+The King arrived; I then had the pleasure of seeing him, not two paces
+from me, before my very eyes, saying witty and agreeable things to the
+Marquise; while he talked to me only of the rain and the weather, always
+cursorily.
+
+It was then that I received a second anonymous letter, in the same
+handwriting, the same style, the same tone as that of which mention has
+been made.  I transcribe it; it is curious.
+
+TO MADAME LA MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN.
+
+MADAME:--You have not followed my former advice.  The opportunity has
+gone by; it is too late.  Your superintendence is left with you, and
+there are four or five hundred thousand livres lying idle; for you will
+not be able to sell the superintendence of a household, and of a council,
+which are in a tomb at Saint Denis!  Happily you are rich, and what would
+be a disaster to another fortune is scarcely more than a slight
+disappointment to you.  I take the respectful liberty of talking once
+more with the prettiest and wittiest woman of her century, in order to
+submit to her certain ideas, and to offer her a fresh piece of advice,
+which I believe important.
+
+The Queen, moved by a generosity seldom found in her peers, pardoned you
+to some degree your theft of her spouse; she pardoned you in order to be
+agreeable to him, and to prove to him that, being his most sincere
+friend, she could not bring herself to contest his affections and his
+pastimes.  But this sublime philosophy is at an end; the excellent heart
+of this Queen is at Val-de-Grace; it will beat no more, neither for her
+volatile husband, nor for any one whatsoever.
+
+Madame la Dauphine, brought up in German severity, and hardly accustomed
+to the atmosphere of her new country, neither likes nor respects you, nor
+has any indulgence for you.  She barely suffers the presence of your
+children, although brothers of her husband. How should she tolerate
+yours?  It appears, it is plain, Madame la Marquise, that your name has
+found no place or footing on her list, and that she would rather not meet
+you often in her salons.  If one may even speak to you confidentially,
+she has thus expressed herself; it would be cruel for you to hear of it
+from any other being but me.
+
+Believe me, believe a man as noted for his good qualities as for his
+weaknesses.  He will never drive you away, for you are the mother of his
+beloved children, and he has loved you himself tenderly. However, his
+coldness is going to increase.  Will you be sufficiently light-hearted,
+or sufficiently imprudent, to await on a counterscarp the rigours of
+December and January?
+
+Keep your wit always, Madame la Marquise, and with this wit, which is
+such a charming resource, do not divest yourself of your noble pride.
+
+I am, always, your respectful and devoted servant,
+
+THE UNKNOWN OF THE CHATEAU.
+
+At the time of the first letter, when I had hesitated some time, doubtful
+between Madame de Maintenon and the King, it occurred to me to suspect
+the Queen for a moment; but there was no possibility now of imputing to
+this princess, dead and gone, the unbecoming annoyance that an unknown
+permitted himself to cause me.
+
+On this occasion I chose my part resolutely; and, not wishing to busy
+myself any longer with these pretended friendly counsels which my pride
+forbade me to follow, I took these two insolent letters and burned them.
+This last letter, after all, spoke very truly.  I remarked distinctly, in
+the looks and manner of the Dauphine, that ridiculous and clumsy
+animosity which she had taken a fancy to lavish on me.
+
+As she was not, in my eyes, so sublime a personage that a lady of quality
+might not enter into conversation with her, I approached her armchair
+with the intention of upsetting her haughtiness and pride by compelling
+her to speak to me before everybody.
+
+I complimented her on her coiffure, and even thanked her for the honour
+she did me in imitating me; she reddened, and I entreated her not to put
+herself about, assuring her that her face looked much better in its
+habitual pallor.  These words redoubled her dissatisfaction, and her
+redness then became a veritable scarlet flame.
+
+Passing forthwith to another subject, I pronounced in a few words a
+panegyric on the late Queen; to which I skilfully added that, from the
+first day, she had been able to understand the French graces and assume
+them with intelligence and taste.
+
+"Her Spanish accent troubled her for a year or two longer," added I;
+"strictly speaking, this accent, derived from the Italian, has nothing
+disagreeable in it; while the English, Polish, Russian, and German accent
+is inharmonious in itself, and is lost with great difficulty here."
+
+Seeing that my reflections irritated her, I stopped short, and made my
+excuses by saying to her, "Madame, these are only general reflections.
+Your Highness is an exception, and has struck us all, as you have nothing
+German left but memories, and, perhaps, regrets."
+
+She answered me, stammering, that she had not been destined in the first
+place for the throne of France, and that this want of forethought had
+injured her education; then, feeling a spark of courage in her heart, she
+said that the late Queen had more than once confided to her that the
+Court of France was disorderly in its fashions, because it was never the
+princesses who gave it its tone as elsewhere.
+
+Madame de Maintenon perceived quickly the consequences of this saying;
+for the peace of the Princess, she retorted quickly: "In France, the
+princesses are so kind and obliging as to follow the fashions; but the
+good examples and good tone come to us from our princes, and our only
+merit is to imitate them with ingenuity."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+Judgment Given by the Chatelet.--The Marquis d'Antin Restored to His
+Father.--The Judgment is Not Executed.--Full Mourning.--Funeral
+Service.--The Notary of Saint Elig.--The Lettre de Cachet.
+
+
+The Marquis d'Antin, my son, with the consent of the King, had remained
+under my control, and had never consented to quit me to rejoin his
+father.  M. de Montespan, at the time of the suit for judicial separation
+before the Chatelet, had caused his advocate to maintain this barbarous
+argument, that a son, though brought into the world by his mother, ought
+to side against her if domestic storms arise, and prefer to everybody and
+everything the man whose arms and name he bears.
+
+The tribunal of the Chatelet, trampling upon maternal tenderness and
+humanity, granted his claim in full; and I was advised not to appeal, now
+that I had obtained the thing essential to me, a separation in body and
+estate.
+
+M. de Montespan dared not come himself to Paris in order to execute the
+sentence; he sent for that purpose two officers of artillery, his friends
+or relatives, who were authorised to see the young Marquis at his
+college, but not to withdraw him before the close of his humanities and
+classes.  These gentlemen, having sent word to the father that the young
+D'Antin was my living image, he replied to them, that they were to insist
+no longer, to abandon their mission, and to abandon a child who would
+never enjoy his favour since he resembled myself.  Owing to this happy
+circumstance I was able to preserve my son.
+
+Since these unhappy disputes, and the suit which made so much noise, I
+had heard no more talk of M. de Montespan in society.  I only learned
+from travellers that he was building, a short distance from the Pyrenees,
+a chateau of a noble and royal appearance, where he had gathered together
+all that art, joined with good taste, could add to nature; that this
+chateau of Saint Elix, adorned with the finest orange grove in the world,
+was ascribed to the liberality of the King.  The Marquis, hurt by this
+mistake of his neighbours, which he called an accusation, published a
+solemn justification in these ingenuous provinces, and he proved, as a
+clerk might do to his master, that this enormous expenditure was
+exclusively his own.
+
+Suddenly the report of his death spread through the capital, and the
+Marquis d'Antin received without delay an official letter with a great,
+black seal, which announced to him this most lamentable event.  The
+notary of Saint Elix, in sending him this sad news, took the opportunity
+of enclosing a certified copy of the will.
+
+This testament, replete with malignity, having been freely published in
+the capital, I cannot refrain from reproducing it in these writings.
+
+Here are its principal clauses;
+
+In the name of the most blessed Trinity, etc.
+
+Since I cannot congratulate myself on a wife, who, diverting herself as
+much as possible, has caused me to pass my youth and my life in celibacy,
+I content myself with leaving, her my life-sized portrait, by Bourdon,
+begging her to place it in her bedchamber, when the King ceases to come
+there.
+
+Although the Marquis de Pardailhan d'Antin is prodigiously like his
+mother (a circumstance of which I have been lamentably sensible!), I do
+not hesitate to believe him my son.  In this quality I give and bequeath
+to him all my goods, as my eldest son, imposing on him, nevertheless, the
+following legacies, liberalities and charges:
+
+I leave to their Highnesses, M. le Duc du Maine, M. le Comte de Toulouse,
+Mademoiselle de Nantes, and Mademoiselle de Blois (born during my
+marriage with their mother, and consequently my presumptive children),
+their right of legitimacy on the charge and condition of their bearing in
+one of their quarterings the Pardailhan-Montespan arms.
+
+I take the respectful liberty of here thanking my King for the extreme
+kindness which he has shown to my wife, nee De Mortemart, to my son
+D'Antin, to his brothers and sisters, both dead and living, and also to
+myself, who have only been dismissed, and kept in exile:
+
+In recognition of which I give and bequeath to his Majesty my vast
+chateau of Montespan, begging him to create and institute there a
+community of Repentant Ladies, to wear the habit of Carmelites or of the
+Daughters of the Conception, on the special charge and condition that he
+place my wife at the head of the said convent, and appoint her to be
+first Abbess.
+
+I attach an annuity of sixty thousand livres to this noble institution,
+hoping that this will make up the deficiency, if there be any.
+
+DE PARDAILHAN DE GONDRAN MONTESPAN, Separated, although inseparable
+spouse.
+
+A family council being held to decide what I must do on this occasion,
+Madame de Thianges, M. de Vivonne, and M. de Blanville-Colbert decided
+that I must wear the same full mourning as my son D'Antin.  As for this
+odious will, it was agreed that it should not even be spoken of, and that
+the notary of Saint Elix should be written to at once, to place it in the
+hands of a third party, of whom he would be presently notified at the
+place.  The Marquis d'Antin at once had my equipage and his own draped.
+We hastened to put all our household into mourning from top to toe, and
+the funeral service, with full ritual, was ordered to be performed at the
+parish church.  The very same day, as the family procession was about to
+set out on its way to the church, a sort of sergeant, dressed in black,
+handed a fresh letter to the Marquis d'Antin.  It contained these words:
+
+The notary of Saint Elix deserves a canonry in the Chapter of Charenton;
+it is not the Marquis de Montespan who is dead; they have played a trick
+on you.
+
+The only truth in all of it is the will, of which the notary of Saint
+Elix has been in too great a hurry to send a copy.  A thousand excuses to
+M. le Marquis d'Antin and his mother, Madame la Marquise.
+
+It was necessary to send orders at once to the parish church to take away
+the catafalque and the drapings.  The priests and the musicians were paid
+as if they had done what they ought to do; and my widowhood, which, at
+another time, might have been of such importance, was, I dare to say,
+indifferent to me.
+
+The King was informed of what had just taken place in my family.  He
+spoke of it as an extremely disagreeable affair.  I answered him that it
+was far more disagreeable for me than for any one else.  His Majesty
+added:
+
+"Tell the Marquis d'Antin to go to Saint Elix and pay his respects to his
+father.  This journey will also enable him to learn if such a ridiculous
+will really exists, and if your husband has reached such a pitch of
+independence.  D'Antin will beg him, on my behalf, to tear up that
+document, and to earn my favour by doing so."
+
+My son, after consulting with his Majesty, started indeed for the
+Pyrenees.  His father at first gave him a cold welcome.  The next day the
+Marquis discovered the secret of pleasing him; and M. de Montespan, at
+this full mourning, this family council, and at the catafalque in the
+middle of the church, promised to alter the will on condition that his
+'lettre do cachet' should be revoked and quashed within the next
+fortnight.
+
+The King agreed to these demands, which did not any longer affect him. I
+was the only person sacrificed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+The Duc du Maine Provided with the Government of Languedoc.--The Young
+Prince de Conti.--His Piety.--His Apostasy.--The Duc de la Feuillade
+Burlesqued.--The Watch Set with Diamonds.--The False Robber.--Scene
+amongst the Servants.
+
+
+The old Duc de Verneuil, natural son of King Henri IV., died during these
+incidents, leaving the government of Languedoc vacant.  The King summoned
+M. le Duc du Maine at once, and, embracing him with his usual tenderness,
+he said to him: "My son, though you are very young, I make you governor
+of Languedoc.  This will make many jealous of you; do not worry about
+them, I am always here to defend you.  Go at once to Mademoiselle's, who
+has just arrived at Versailles, and tell her what I have done for her
+adopted child."
+
+I went to thank his Majesty for this favour, which seemed to me very
+great, since my son was not twelve years old.  The King said to me: "Here
+comes the carriage of the Prince de Conti; you may be certain that he
+comes to ask me for this place."
+
+In fact, those were the first words of the Prince de Conti.
+
+"The government for which you ask," said the King, "has been for a long
+time promised to Madame de Maintenon for her Duc du Maine.  I intend
+something else for you, my dear cousin.  Trust in me.  In giving you my
+beloved daughter I charged myself with your fortunes; you are on my list,
+and in the first rank."
+
+The young Prince changed colour.  He entreated the King to believe him
+worthy of his confidence and esteem, to which he imprudently added these
+words: "My wife was born before M. du Maine."
+
+"And you, too," replied his Majesty; "are you any the more sober for
+that?  There are some little youthful extravagances in your conduct which
+pain me.  I leave my daughter in ignorance of them, because I wish her to
+be at peace.  Endeavour to prevent her being informed of them by
+yourself.  Govern yourself as a young man of your birth ought to govern
+himself; then I will hand a government over to you with pleasure."
+
+The Prince de Conti appeared to me very much affected by this homily and
+disappointment.  He saluted me, however, with a smile of benevolence and
+the greatest amenity.  We learnt a short time afterwards that his wife
+had shed many tears, and was somewhat set against my children and myself.
+
+This amiable Princess then was not aware that the government of Languedoc
+was not granted at my instance, but at the simple desire of Madame de
+Maintenon; the King had sufficiently explained it.
+
+Just at this moment M. le Prince de Conti had made himself notable by his
+attachment or his deference towards matters of religion and piety.  His
+superb chariot and his peach-coloured liveries were to be seen, on
+fete-days, at the doors of the great churches.  He suddenly changed his
+manoeuvres, and refused to subject himself to restraints which led him no
+whither.  He scoffed publicly at the Jesuits, the Sulpicians, and their
+formal lectures and confraternities; he refused to distribute the blessed
+bread at his parish church, and heard mass only from his chaplains and in
+his palace.
+
+This ill-advised behaviour did not improve his position.  Madame, his
+wife, continued to come to Versailles on gala-days, or days of reunion,
+but he and his brother appeared there less and less frequently.  They
+were exceedingly handsome, both of them; not through their father, whose
+huge nose had rendered him ridiculous, but through the Princess, their
+mother, Anna or Felicia de Martinozzi, niece of Cardinal Mazarin.  God
+had surpassed himself in creating that graceful head, and those eyes will
+never have their match in sweetness and beauty.
+
+Free now to follow his own tastes, which only policy had induced him to
+dissimulate and constrain, M. de Conti allowed himself all that a young
+prince, rich and pleasure-loving, could possibly wish in this world. In
+the midst of these reunions, consecrated to pleasure, and even to
+debauchery, he loved to signalise his lordly liberality; nothing could
+stop him, nothing was too extravagant for him.  His passion was to remove
+all obstacles and pay for everybody.
+
+His joyous companions cried out with admiration, and celebrated, in prose
+and verse, so noble a taste and virtues so rare.  The young orphan
+inhaled this incense with delight; he contracted enormous debts, and soon
+did not know where to turn to pay them.
+
+The King, well informed of these excesses, commanded M. le Duc de la
+Feuillade to have the young man followed, and inform himself of all he
+did.
+
+One day, when M. de la Feuillade himself had followed him too closely,
+and forced him, for the space of an hour, to scour over all Le Marais in
+useless and fatiguing zigzags, M. de Conti, who recognised him perfectly,
+in spite of his disguise, pretended that his watch, set with diamonds,
+had been stolen.  He pointed out this man as the thief to his ready
+servingmen, who fell upon M. de la Feuillade, and, stripping him to find
+the watch, gave the Prince time to escape and reach his place of
+rendezvous.
+
+The captain was ill for several days, and even in danger, in consequence
+of this adventure, which did not improve the credit of M. le Prince de
+Conti, much as it needed improvement.
+
+His young and beautiful wife excused him in everything, ignoring, and
+wishing to ignore, the extent of his guilt and frivolity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+A Funeral and Diversions.--Sinister Dream.--Funeral Orations of the
+Queen.
+
+
+It remains for me to relate certain rather curious circumstances in
+relation to the late Queen, after which I shall speak of her no more in
+these Memoirs.
+
+She was left for ten days, lying in state, in the mortuary chapel of
+Versailles, where mass was being said by priests at four altars from
+morning till evening.  She was finally removed from this magnificent
+Palace of Enchantment to Saint Denis.  Numerous carriages followed the
+funeral car, and in all these carriages were the high officials, as well
+as the ladies, who had belonged to her.  But what barbarity! what
+ingratitude! what a scandal!  In all these mournful carriages, people
+talked and laughed and made themselves agreeable; and the body-guards, as
+well as the gendarmes and musketeers, took turns to ride their horses
+into the open plain and shoot at the birds.
+
+Monsieur le Dauphin, after Saint Denis, went to lie at the Tuileries,
+before betaking himself to the service on the following day at Notre
+Dame.  In the evening, instead of remaining alone and in seclusion in his
+apartment, as a good son ought to have done, he went to the Palais Royal
+to see the Princess Palatine and her husband, whom he had had with him
+all the day; he must have distraction, amusement, and even merry
+conversations, such as simple bourgeois would not permit themselves on so
+solemn an occasion, were it only out of decorum.
+
+In the midst of these ridiculous and indefensible conversations, the news
+arrived that the King had broken his arm.  The Marquis de Mosny had
+started on the instant in order to inform the young Prince of it; and Du
+Saussoi, equerry of his Majesty, arrived half an hour later, giving the
+same news with the details.
+
+The King (who was hunting during the obsequies of his wife) had fallen
+off his horse, which he had not been able to prevent from stumbling into
+a ditch full of tall grass and foliage.  M. Felix, a skilful and prudent
+surgeon, had just set the arm, which was only put out of joint.  The King
+sent word to the Dauphin not to leave the Tuileries, and to attend the
+funeral ceremony on the morrow.
+
+The fair of Saint Laurence was being held at this moment, although the
+city of Paris had manifested an intention of postponing it.  They were
+exhibiting to the curious a little wise horse which bowed, calculated,
+guessed, answered questions, and performed marvels.  The King had
+strictly forbidden his family and the people of the Court to let
+themselves be seen at this fair.  Monsieur le Dauphin, none the less,
+wished to contemplate, with his own eyes, this extraordinary and
+wonderful little horse.  Consequently, he had to be taken to the Chateau
+des Tuileries, where he took a puerile amusement in a spectacle in itself
+trivial, and, at such a time, scandalous.
+
+The poor Queen would have died of grief if the death of her son had
+preceded hers, against the order of nature; but the hearts of our
+children are not disposed like ours, and who knows how I shall be treated
+myself by mine when I am gone?
+
+With regard to the King's arm, Madame d'Orleans, during the service for
+the Queen, was pleased to relate to the Grande Mademoiselle that, three
+or four days before, she had seen, in a somewhat troublesome and painful
+dream, the King's horse run away, and throw him upon the rocks and
+brambles of a precipice, from which he was rescued with a broken arm. A
+lady observed that dreams are but vague and uncertain indications.
+
+"Not mine," replied Madame, with ardour; "they are not like others. Five
+or six days before the Queen fell ill, I told her, in the presence of
+Madame la Dauphine, that I had a most alarming dream.  I had dreamt that
+I was in a large church all draped in black.  I advanced to the
+sanctuary; a vault was opened at one side of the altar.  Some kind of
+priests went down, and these folk said aloud, as they came up again, that
+they had found no place at first; that the cavity having seemed to them
+too long and deep, they had arranged the biers, and had placed there the
+body of the lady.  At that point I awoke, quite startled, and not
+myself."
+
+Hardly had the Princess finished her story, when the Infanta, turning
+pale, said to her: "Madame, you will see, the dream of the vault refers
+to me.  At the funeral of the Queen of England I noticed, and remember,
+that the same difficulty occurred at Saint Denis; they were obliged to
+push up all the coffins, one against the other."
+
+And, in truth, we knew, a few days afterwards, that for this poor Queen,
+Maria Theresa, the monks of the abbey had found it necessary to break
+down a strong barrier of stones in their subterranean church, to remove
+the first wife of Gaston, mother of Mademoiselle, and find a place for
+the Spanish Queen who had arrived in those regions.
+
+There were several funeral orations on this occasion.  Not a single one
+of these official discourses deserved to survive the Queen.  There was
+very little to say about her, I admit; but these professional
+panegyrists, these liars in surplice, in black cassock, or in purple and
+mitre, are not too scrupulous to borrow facts and material in cases where
+the dead person has neglected to furnish or bequeath it them.
+
+In my own case I congratulated myself on this sort of indifference or
+literary penury; an indiscreet person, sustained by zeal or talent, might
+have wished to mortify me in a romance combined of satire and religion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+Jean Baptiste Colbert.--His Death.--His Great Works.--His Last Advice to
+the Marquise.
+
+
+M. Colbert had been ailing for a long time past.  His face bore visible
+testimony against his health, to which his accumulated and incessant
+labour had caused the greatest injury.  We had just married his son
+Blainville to my niece, Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente, heiress of the
+house of Rochchouart.  Since this union--the King's work--M. Colbert had
+somewhat tended in my favour, and I had reason to count on his good
+offices and kindness.  I said to him one day that my quarrel with him was
+that he did not look after himself, that he ignored all his own worth,
+treated himself with no more respect than a mere clerk; that he was the
+indispensable man, the right hand of the King, his eye of vigilance in
+everything, and the pillar of his business and his finance.
+
+Without being precisely what one would call a modest man, M. Colbert was
+calm of mind, and by nature without pose or presumption.  He cared
+sincerely for the King's glory.  He held his tongue on the subject of
+great enterprises, but employed much zeal and ability in promoting the
+success of good projects and ideas, such as, for instance, our Indies and
+Pondicherry.
+
+He had known how to procure, without oppressing any one, the incalculable
+sums that had been necessitated, not only by enormous and almost
+universal wars, but by all those canals, all those ports in the
+Mediterranean or the ocean, that vast creation of vessels, arsenals,
+foundries, military houses and hospitals which we had seen springing up
+in all parts.  He had procured by his application, his careful
+calculations, the wherewithal to build innumerable fortresses, aqueducts,
+fountains, bridges, the Observatory of Paris, the Royal Hospital of the
+Invalides, the chateaus of the Tuileries and of Vincennes, the engine and
+chateau of Marly, that prodigious chateau of Versailles, with its Trianon
+of marble, which by itself might have served as a habitation for the
+richest monarchs of the Orient.
+
+He had founded the wonderful glass factories, and those of the Gobelins;
+he had raised, as though by a magic ring, the Royal Library over the
+gardens and galleries of Mazarin; and foreigners asked one another, in
+their surprise, what they must admire most in that monument, the interior
+pomp of the edifice or its rich collection of books, coins, and
+manuscripts.
+
+To all these works, more than sufficient to immortalise twenty ministers,
+M. Colbert was adding at this moment the huge 'salpetriere' of Paris and
+the colonnades of the Louvre.  Ruthless death came to seize him in the
+midst of these occupations, so noble, useful, and glorious.
+
+The great Colbert, worn out with fatigue, watching, and constraint, left
+the King, his wife, his children, his honours, his well-earned riches,
+and displayed no other anxiety than alarm as to his salvation,--as though
+so many services rendered to the nation and to his prince were no more,
+in his eyes, than vain works in relation to eternity.
+
+Madame de Maintenon, having become a great lady, could, not reasonably
+continue her office of governess to the King's children.  M. Colbert,
+that man of vigour, that Mount Atlas, capable of supporting all things
+without a plaint, had been charged with the care of the two new-born
+princes.
+
+Because of the third Mademoiselle de Blois, and of the little Comte de
+Toulouse, I saw the minister frequently, and I was one of the first to
+remark the change in his face and his health.
+
+During his last illness, I visited him more often.  One day, of his own
+accord, he said to me:
+
+"How do you get on with Madame de Maintenon?  I have never heard her
+complain of you; but I make you this confidence out of friendship.  His
+Majesty complains of your attitude towards your former friend.  If the
+frankness of your nature and the impatience of your humour have sometimes
+led you too far, I exhort you to moderate yourself, in your own interest
+and in that of your children.  Madame de Maintenon is an amiable and
+witty person, whose society pleases the King.  Have this consideration
+for a hard-working prince, whom intellectual recreation relaxes and
+diverts, and make a third at those pleasant gatherings where you shone
+long before this lady, and where you would never be her inferior.  Go
+there, and frequently, instead of keeping at a distance in an attitude of
+resentment, which, do not doubt, is noticed and viewed unfavourably."
+
+"But, monsieur," I answered M. Colbert, "you are not, then, aware that
+every time I am a third person at one of these interminable
+conversations, I always meet with some mark of disapproval, and sometimes
+with painful mortifications?"
+
+"I have been told so," the sick man replied; "but I have also been told
+that you imprudently call down on yourself these outbursts of the King.
+What need have you to quarrel with Madame de Maintenon over a look, a
+word, a movement or a gesture?  You seem to me persuaded that love enters
+into the King's friendship for the Marquise.  Well, suppose you have
+guessed aright his Majesty's sentiments; will your dissatisfaction and
+your sarcasms prevent those sentiments from existing, and the prince from
+indulging them?
+
+"You know, madame, that he generally gets everything he wants, and M. de
+Montespan experienced that when he wished to set himself against your
+joint wills.
+
+"I am nearer my end and my release than my doctors think.  In leaving
+this whirlpool of disappointments, ambitions, errors, and mutual
+injustice, I should like to see you free, at peace, reconciled to your
+real interests, and out of reach, forever, of the vicissitudes of
+fortune.  In my eyes, your position is that of a ship-owner whom the
+ocean has constantly favoured, and who has reaped great riches.  With
+moderation and prudence, it depended on himself to profit by his
+astonishing success, and at last to enjoy his life; but ambition and vain
+desire drive him afresh upon this sea, so fruitful in shipwrecks, and his
+last venture destroys all his prosperity and all his many labours.
+
+"Our excellent Queen has gone to rest from her troubles and her journeys;
+and I, madame, am going to rest not long after her, having worn out my
+strength on great things that are as nothing."
+
+The Marquis de Seignelay, eldest son of this minister, counted on
+succeeding to the principal offices of his father.  He made a mistake.
+The place of secretary of state and controller-general passed to the
+President Pelletier, who had been chosen by M. Colbert himself; and the
+superintendence of buildings, gardens, and works went to swell the
+numerous functions of the Marquis de Louvois, who wished for and counted
+on it.
+
+MM. de Blainville and Seignelay had good posts, proportioned to their
+capacity; the King never ceased to look upon them as the children of his
+dear M. Colbert.
+
+[It mast be remembered that the young Marquis de Seignelay was already
+Minister of Marine, an office which remained with him.--Ed.]
+
+Before his death, this minister saw his three daughters become duchesses.
+The King, who had been pleased to make these marriages, had given each of
+them a dowry of a million in cash.
+
+As for the Abbe Colbert, already promoted to the Bishopric of Montpellier
+(to which three important abbeys were joined), he had the Archbishopric
+of Toulouse, with an immense revenue.  It is true that he took a pleasure
+in rebuilding his archiepiscopal palace and cathedral out of a huge and
+ancient treasure, which he discovered whilst pulling down some old ruin
+to make a salon.
+
+One might say that there was some force of attraction attached to this
+family and name of Colbert.  Treasures arose from the earth to give
+themselves up and obey them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+Mesdemoiselles de Mazarin.--The Age of Puberty.--Madame de
+Beauvais.--Anger of the Queen-mother.--The Cardinal's Policy.--First
+Love.--Louis de Beauvais.--The Abbe de Rohan-Soubise.--The Emerald's
+Lying-in.--The Handsome Musketeer.--The Counterfeit of the King.
+
+
+At the time when the King, still very young, was submitting without
+impatience to the authority of the Queen, his mother, and his godfather,
+the Cardinal, his strength underwent a sudden development, and this lad
+became, all at once, a man.  The numerous nieces of Cardinal Mazarin, who
+were particularly dear to the Queen, were as much at the Louvre as at
+their own home.  Anne of Austria, naturally affable, gladly released them
+from the etiquette which was imposed upon every one else.  These young
+ladies played and laughed, sang or frolicked, after the manner of their
+years, and the young King lived frankly and gaily in their midst, as one
+lives with agreeable sisters, when one is happy enough to have such.  He
+lived fraternally with these pretty Italian girls, but his intimacy
+stopped there, since the Cardinal and the governess watched night and day
+over a young man who was greatly subject to surveillance.
+
+At the same time, there was amongst the Queen's women a rather pretty
+waiting-maid, well brought up, who was called Madame de Beauvais.  Those
+brunettes, with black eyes, bright complexions, and graceful plumpness,
+are almost always wanton and alluring.  Madame de Beauvais noticed the
+sudden development of the monarch, his impassioned reveries which
+betrayed themselves in his gaze.  She thought she had detected intentions
+on his part, and an imperious need of explaining himself.  A word, which
+was said to her in passing, authorised her, or seemed to authorise her,
+to make an almost intelligible reply.  The young wooer showed himself
+less undecided, less enigmatic,--and the understanding was completed.
+
+Madame de Beauvais was the recipient of the prince's first emotions, and
+the clandestine connection lasted for three months.  Anne of Austria,
+informed of what was passing, wished at first to punish her first maid in
+waiting; but the Cardinal, more circumspect, represented to her that this
+connection, of which no one knew, was an occupation, not to say a
+safeguard, for the young King, whose fine constitution and health
+naturally drew him to the things of life.  "Although eighteen years of
+age," he added, "the prince abandons the whole authority to you; whereas
+another, in his place, would ardently dispute it.  Do not let us quarrel
+with him about trifles; leave him his Beauvais lady, so that he may make
+no attempt on my pretty nieces nor on your authority, madame, nor on my
+important occupations, which are for the good of the State."
+
+Anne of Austria, who was more a Christian and a mother than a diplomatic
+woman, found it very painful to appreciate these arguments of the
+Cardinal; but after some reflection she recognised their importance, and
+things remained as they were.
+
+Madame de Beauvais had a son, whom the husband (whether overconfident or
+not) saw brought into the world with much delight, and whom, with a
+wealth of royalist respect, they baptised under the agreeable name of
+Louis.  This child, who had a fine figure and constitution, received a
+particularly careful education.  He has something of the King about him,
+principally in his glance and smile.  He presents, however, only the
+intellectual habit of his mother, and even a notable absence of grandeur
+and elevation.  He is a very pretty waiting-woman, dressed out as a
+cavalier; in a word, he is that pliant and indefatigable courtier, whom
+we see everywhere, and whom town and Court greet by the name of Baron de
+Beauvais.
+
+His sister is the Duchesse de Richelieu, true daughter of her father, as
+ugly, or rather as lacking in charm, as he is; but replete with subtilty
+and intelligence,--with that intelligence which perpetually suggests a
+humble origin, and which wearies or importunes, because of its
+ill-nature.  At the age of seventeen, her freshness made her pass for
+being pretty.  She accused the young Duc de Richelieu of having seduced
+her, and made her a mother; and he, in his fear of her indignation and
+intrigues, and of the reproaches of the Queen, hastened to confess his
+fault, and to repair everything by marrying her.
+
+Baron Louis, her brother, to whom the King could hardly refuse anything,
+made her a lady of honour to the Dauphine.  Madame de Richelieu delighted
+to spread a report in the world that I had procured her this office; she
+was deceived, and wished to be deceived.  I had asked this eminent
+position for the Marquise de Thianges, in whom I was interested very
+differently.  His Majesty decided that a marquise was inferior to a
+duchess, even when that duchess was born a De Beauvais.  Another son of
+the monarch, well known at the Court as such, is M. l'Abbe de
+Rohan-Soubise, to whom the cardinal's hat is already promised.  His
+figure, his carriage, his head, his attitude, his whole person infallibly
+reveal him; and the Prince de Soubise has so thoroughly recognised and
+understood the deceit, that he honours the young churchman with all his
+indifference and his respect.  He acts with him as a sort of guardian;
+and that is the limitation of his role.
+
+The Princesse de Soubise, who had resolved to advance her careless
+husband, either to the government of Brittany or to some ministry,
+persuaded herself that it is only by women that men can be advanced; and
+that in order to advance a husband, it is necessary to advance oneself.
+Although a little thin, and lacking that of which the King is so fond, we
+saw in her a very pretty woman.  She knew how to persuade his Majesty
+that she cherished for him the tenderest love.  That is, I believe, the
+one trap that it is possible to set for him.  He is credulous on that
+head; he was speedily caught.  And every time that M. de Rohan was away,
+and there was freedom at the Hotel Soubise, the Princess came in person
+to Saint Germain or to Versailles, to show her necklace and pendant of
+emeralds to the King.  Such was the agreed signal.
+
+The Abbe de Rohan was born of these emeralds.  The King displays
+conscience in all his actions, except in his wars and conquests.  When
+the little Soubise was grown up, his Majesty signified to the mother that
+this young man must enter the Church, not wishing to suffer the formation
+of a parasitical branch amongst the Rohans, which would have
+participated, without any right, in the legitimate sap.  It is asserted
+that the Abbe de Rohan only submitted with infinite regret to a sentence
+which neutralised him.  The King has promised him all possible
+consideration; he has even embraced him tenderly, an action which is
+almost equivalent to a "declaration of degree" made to the Parliament.
+
+The other child alleged to the King is that handsome musketeer, who is so
+like him.  But, judging from the King's character, which respects, and in
+some fashion almost admires itself, in everything which proceeds from it,
+I do not venture to believe in this musketeer.  The King wished one day
+to see him close by, and even accosted him by the orange-shrubbery; but
+this movement seemed to me one of pure curiosity.
+
+The resemblance, I must confess, is the most striking that I have yet
+seen; for it is complete, even to the tone of the voice.  But a look
+might have operated this miracle.  Instance the little negress, the
+daughter of the poor Queen, that Queen so timid and entirely natural,
+who, to her happiness, as much as to her glory, has never looked at,
+approached, or distinguished any one except the King.
+
+For the rest, we shall see and know well if the King does anything for
+his musketeer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+The Young Nobility and the Turks.--Private Correspondence.--The Unlucky
+Minister and the Page of Strasburg.--The King Judged and Described in All
+the Documents.--The King Humiliated in His Affections.--Scandal at
+Court.--Grief of Fathers at Having Given Life to Such Children.--Why
+Prince Eugene Was Not a Bishop.--Why He Was Not a Colonel of
+France.--Death of the Prince de Conti.
+
+
+As France was at peace at the moment when the three hundred thousand
+Turks swarmed over Hungary and threatened Vienna, our young princes, and
+a fairly large number of nobles of about the same age, took it into their
+heads to go and exhibit their bravery in Germany; they asked permission
+of M. de Louvois to join the Imperialists.  This permission was granted
+to some amongst them, but refused to others.  Those whom it was thought
+fit to restrain took no notice of the words of the minister, and departed
+as resolutely as though the King had fallen asleep.  They were arrested
+on the road; but his Majesty, having reflected on the matter, saw that
+these special prohibitions would do harm to the intentions which he had
+with regard to his deference for Germany, and they were all allowed to go
+their own way.
+
+A little later, it was discovered that there was a regular and active
+correspondence between these young people in Germany and others who had
+remained in Paris or at the Court.  The first minister had a certain
+page, one of the most agile, pursued; he was caught up with at Strasburg;
+his valise was seized.  The Marquis de Louvois, desiring to give the King
+the pleasure of himself opening these mysterious letters, handed him the
+budget, the seals intact, and his Majesty thanked him for this attention.
+These thanks were the last that that powerful minister was destined to
+receive from his master; his star waned from that hour, never again to
+recover its lustre; all his credit failed and crashed to the ground. This
+correspondence--spied on with so much zeal, surprised and carried off
+with such good fortune--informed the astonished monarch that, in the
+Louvois family, in his house and circle, his royal character, his
+manners, his affections, his tastes, his person, his whole life, were
+derisively censured.  The beloved son-in-law of the minister, speaking
+with an open heart to his friends, who were travelling, and absent,
+represented the King to them as a sort of country-gentleman, given up now
+to the domestic and uniform life of the manor-house, more than ever
+devoted to his dame bourgeoise, and making love ecstatically at the feet
+of this young nymph of fifty seasons.
+
+M. de la Roche-Guyon and M. de Liancourt, sons of La Rochefoucauld, who
+expressed themselves with the same boldness, went so far as to say of
+their ruler that he was but a stage and tinsel king.  The son-in-law of
+Louvois accused him of being most courageous in his gallery, but of
+turning pale on the eve, and at the moment, of an action; and
+D'Alincourt, son of Villeroi, carried his outrages further still. No one
+knows better than myself how unjust these accusations were, and are.  I
+was sensible of the mortification such a reading must have caused to the
+most sensitive, the most irritable of princes; but I rejoiced at the
+humiliation that the lady in waiting felt for her share in this
+unpardonable correspondence.  The annoyance that I read for some days on
+her handsome face consoled me, for the time being, for her great success
+at my expense.
+
+Madame la Princesse de Conti, whom the King, up to this time, had not
+only cherished but adored, found also, in those documents, the term of
+excessive favour.  A letter from her to her husband said: "I have just
+given myself a maid of honour, wishing to spare Madame de Maintenon the
+trouble, or the pleasure, of giving me one herself."
+
+She was summoned to Versailles, as she may very well have expected.  The
+King, paying no attention to her tears, said to her: "I believed in your
+affection; I have done everything to deserve it; it is lamentable to me
+to be unable to count on it longer.  Your cruel letter is in Madame de
+Maintenon's hands.  She will let you read it again before committing it
+to the fire, and I beg you to inform her what is the harm she has done
+you."
+
+"Madame," said Madame de Maintenon to her, when she saw her before her,
+"when your amiable mother left this Court, where the slightest prosperity
+attracts envy, I promised her to take some care of your childhood, and I
+have kept my word.
+
+"I have always treated you with gentleness and consideration; whence
+proceeds your hate against me of to-day?  Is your young heart capable of
+it?  I believed you to be a model of gratitude and goodness."
+
+"Madame," replied the young Princess, weeping, "deign to pardon this
+imprudence of mine and to reconcile me with the King, whom I love so
+much."
+
+"I have not the credit which you assume me to have," replied the lady in
+waiting, coldly.  "Except for the extreme kindness of the King you would
+not be where you are, and you take it ill that I should be where I am! I
+have neither desired nor solicited the arduous rank that I occupy; I need
+resignation and obedience to support such a burden."  Madame de Maintenon
+resumed her work.  The Princess, not daring to interrupt her silence,
+made the bow that was expected of her and withdrew.
+
+The Marquis de Louvois, when he read what his own son-in-law dared to
+write of the monarch, grew pale and swooned away with grief.  He cast
+himself several times before the feet of his master, asking now the
+punishment and now the pardon of a criminal and a madman.
+
+"I believed myself to be loved by your family," cried the King.  "What
+must I do, then, to be loved?  And, great God! with what a set I am
+surrounded!"
+
+All these things transpired.  Soon we saw the father of the audacious De
+Liancourt arrive like a man bereft of his wits.  He ran to precipitate
+himself at the feet of the King.
+
+"M. de La Rochefoucauld," said the prince to him, "I was ignorant, until
+this day, that I was lacking in what is called martial prowess; but I
+shall at least have, on this occasion, the courage to despise the
+slanderous slights of these presumptuous youths.  Do not talk to me of
+the submissions and regrets of your two sons, who are unworthy of you;
+let them live as far away from me as possible; they do not deserve to
+approach an honest man, such as their King."
+
+The Prince de Turenne, son of the Duc de Bouillon, and Prince Eugene of
+Savoy, third or fourth son of the Comtesse de Soissons (Olympe Mancini),
+had accompanied their cousins De Conti on this knightly expedition; all
+these gentlemen returned at the conclusion of the war, except Prince
+Eugene, a violent enemy of the King.
+
+[The Prince de Turenne was in bad odour at Court ever since he had
+separated Monseigneur from his young wife by exaggerating that Princess's
+small failings.--MADAME DE MONTESPAN'S NOTE.]
+
+This young Prince of the second branch, seeing his mother's disgrace
+since the great affair of the poison, hated me mortally.  He carried his
+treachery so far as to attribute to me the misfortunes of Olympe, saying,
+and publishing all over Paris, that I had incited accusers in order to be
+able to deprive her forcibly of her superintendence.  This post, which
+had been sold to me for four hundred thousand francs, had been paid for
+long since; that did not prevent Eugene from everywhere affirming the
+contrary.
+
+Since the flight or exile of his lady mother, he had taken it into his
+head to dream of the episcopate, and to solicit Pere de la Chaise on the
+subject.  But the King, who does not like frivolous or absurd figures in
+high offices, decided that a little man with a deformity would repel
+rather than attract deference at a pinnacle of dignity of the priesthood.
+
+Refused for the episcopate, M. de Soissons thought he might offer himself
+as a colonel.  His Majesty, who did not know the military ways of this
+abbe, refused him anew, both as an abbe and as a hunchback, and as a
+public libertine already degraded by his irregularities.
+
+From all these refusals and mortifications there sprung his firm resolve
+to quit France.  He had been born there; he left all his family there
+except his mother; he declared himself its undying enemy, and said
+publicly in Germany that Louis XIV. would shed tears of blood for the
+injury and the affront which he had offered him.
+
+MM. de Conti, after the events in Hungary and at Vienna, returned to
+France covered with laurels.  They came to salute the King at Versailles.
+His Majesty gave them neither a good nor a bad reception.  The Princes
+left the same day for Chantilly,  where M. de Conde, their paternal
+uncle, tried to curb their too romantic imaginations and guaranteed their
+good behaviour in the future.
+
+This life, sedentary or spent in hunting, began to weary them, when
+overruling Providence was pleased to send them a diversion of the highest
+importance.  M. le Prince de Conti was seized suddenly with that burning
+fever which announces the smallpox.  Every imaginable care was useless;
+he died of it and bequeathed, in spite of himself, a most premature and
+afflicting widowhood to his young and charming spouse, who was not, till
+long afterwards, let into the secret of his scandalous excesses.
+
+M. de la Roche-sur-Yon, his only brother, was as distressed at his death
+as though he had nothing to gain by it; he took immediately the name of
+Conti, and doffed the other, which he had hitherto borne as a borrowed
+title.  The domain and county of La Roche-sur-Yon belongs to the Grande
+Mademoiselle.  She had been asked to make this condescension when the
+young Prince was born.  She agreed with a good grace, for the child, born
+prematurely, did not seem likely to live.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+Ninon at Court.--The King behind the Glass.--Anxiety of the Marquise on
+the Subject of This Interview.--Visit to Madame de Maintenon.--Her Reply
+and Her Ambiguous Promise.
+
+
+Mademoiselle de l'Enclos is universally known in the world for the
+agreeableness of her superior wit and her charms of face and person. When
+Madame de Maintenon, after the loss of her father, arrived from
+Martinique, she had occasion to make her acquaintance; and it seems that
+it was Ninon who, seeing her debating between the offers of M. Scarron
+and the cloister, succeeded in persuading her to marry the rich poet,
+though he was a cripple, rather than to bury herself, so young, in a
+convent of Ursulines or Bernardines, even were the convent in Paris.
+
+At the death of the poet Scarron (who when he married, and when he died,
+possessed only a life annuity), Mademoiselle d'Aubigne, once more in
+poverty, found in Mademoiselle de l'Enclos a generous and persevering
+friend, who at once offered her her house and table.  Mademoiselle
+d'Aubigne passed eight or ten months in the intimate society of this
+philosophical woman.  But her conscience, or her prudery, not permitting
+her to tolerate longer a manner of life in which she seemed to detect
+license, she quitted Ninon, advising her to renounce coquetry, whilst the
+other was advising her to abandon herself to it.
+
+There, where Madame Scarron found the tune of good society with wit, she
+looked upon herself as in her proper sphere, as long as no open scandal
+was brought to her notice.  She consented still to remain her friend; but
+the fear of passing for an approver or an accomplice prevented her from
+remaining if there were any publicity.  It was not exactly through her
+scruples, it was through her vanity.  I have had proof of this on various
+occasions, and I have made no error.
+
+The pretended amours of Mademoiselle d'Aubigne and the Marquis de
+Villarceaux, Ninon's friend, are an invention of malicious envy.  I
+justified Madame Scarron on the matter before the King, when I asked her
+for the education of the Princes; and having rendered her this justice,
+from conviction rather than necessity, I shall certainly not charge her
+with it to-day.  Madame de Maintenon possesses a fund of philosophy which
+she does not reveal nor confess to everybody.  She fears God in the
+manner of Socrates and Plato; and as I have seen her more than once make
+game, with infinite wit, of the Abbe Gobelin, her confessor, who is a
+pedant and avaricious, I am persuaded that she knows much more about it
+than all these proud doctors in theology, and that she would be
+thoroughly capable of confessing her confessor.
+
+She had remained, then, the friend of Ninon, but at heart and in
+recollection, without sending her news or seeing her again.  Mademoiselle
+de l'Enclos, rich, disinterested, and proud of her independent position,
+learned with pleasure the triumph of her former friend, but without
+writing to her or congratulating her.  Ninon, by the consent of all those
+who have come near her, is good-nature itself.  One of her relations, or
+friends, was a candidate for a vacant post as farmer-general, and
+besought her to make some useful efforts for him.
+
+"I have no one but Madame de Maintenon," she replied to this relation.
+And the other said to her:
+
+"Madame de Maintenon?  It is as though you had the King himself!"
+
+Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, trimming her pen with her trusty knife, wrote
+to the lady in waiting an agreeable and polished letter, one of those
+letters, careful without stiffness, that one writes, indulging oneself a
+little with the intention of getting oneself read.
+
+The letter of solicitation seemed so pretty to the lady in waiting that
+she made the King peruse it.
+
+"This is an excellent opportunity for me," said the prince at once, "to
+see with my own eyes this extraordinary, person, of whom I have so long
+heard talk.  I saw her one day at the opera, but just when she was
+getting into her carriage; and my incognito did not permit me to approach
+her.  She seemed to me small, but well made.  Her carriage drove off like
+a flash."
+
+To meet this curiosity which the King displayed, it was agreed that
+Madame de Maintenon, on the pretext of having a better consultation,
+should summon Mademoiselle de l'Enclos to Versailles, and that in one of
+the alcoves of the chapel she should be given a place which should put
+her almost in front of his Majesty.
+
+She arrived some minutes before mass.  Madame de Maintenon received her
+with marked attention, mingled with reserve, promised her support with
+the ministers when the affair should be discussed, and made her promise
+to pass the entire day, at Versailles, for the King was obliged to visit
+the new gardens at Marly.
+
+The time for mass being come, Madame de Maintenon said to the fair
+Epicurean, with a smile: "You are one of us, are you not?  The music will
+be delicious in the chapel to-day; you will not have a moment of
+weariness."
+
+Ninon, meeting this slight reproach with a smile of propriety, replied
+that she adored and respected everything which the monarch respected.
+
+During the service, the King, tranquilly, secluded in his golden box,
+could see and examine the lady at his leisure, without compromising
+himself or embarrassing her by his gaze.  As for her, her decent and
+quite appropriate attitude merited for her the approval of her old
+friend, of the King, and of the most critical eyes.
+
+The monarch, in effect, departed, not for the Chateau of Marly, but for
+Trianon; and hardly had he reached there before, in a little, very close
+carriage, he was brought back to Versailles.  He went up to Madame de
+Maintenon's apartments by the little staircase in the Prince's Court, and
+stole into the glass closet without being observed, except by a solitary
+lackey.
+
+The ladies, believing themselves to be alone and at liberty, talked
+without ceremony or constraint, as though they had been but twenty years
+old.  The King was very much grieved at the things which were said, but
+he heard, without losing a word, the following dialogue or interview:
+
+NINON DE L'ENCLOS.--It is not my preservation which should surprise you,
+since from morning to night I breathe that voluptuous air of independence
+which refreshes the blood, and puts in play its circulation.  I am
+morally the same person whom you came to see in the pretty little house
+in the Rue de Tournelles.  My dressing-gown, as you well know, was my
+preferred and chosen garb.  To-day, as then, Madame la Marquise, I should
+choose to place on my escutcheon the Latin device of the towns of San
+Marino and Lucca,--Libertas.  You have complimented me on my beauty; I
+congratulate you upon yours, and I am surprised that you have so kept and
+preserved it in the midst of the constraints and servitude that grandeur
+and greatness involve.
+
+MADAME DE MAINTENON.--At the commencement, I argued as you argue, and
+believed that I should never get to the year's end without disgust.
+Little by little I imposed silence upon my emotions and my regrets. A
+life of great activity and occupation, by separating us, as it were, from
+ourselves, extinguishes those exacting niceties, both of our proper
+sensibility, and of our self-conceit.  I remembered my sufferings, my
+fears, and my privations after the death of that poor man;--[It was so
+that she commonly spoke of her husband, Scarron.]--and since labour has
+been the yoke imposed by God on every human being, I submitted with a
+good grace to the respectable labour of education.  Few teachers are
+attached to their pupils; I attached myself to mine with tenderness, with
+delight.  It is true that it was my privilege to find the King's children
+amiable and pretty, as few children are.
+
+NINON DE L'ENCLOS.--From the most handsome and amiable man in the world
+there could not come mediocre offspring.  M. du Maine is your idol; the
+King has given him his noble bearing, with his intelligence; and you have
+inoculated him with your wit.  Is it true that Madame de Montespan is no
+longer your friend?  That is a rumour which has credit in the capital;
+and if the thing is true I regret it, and am sorry for you.
+
+MADAME DE MAINTENON.--Madame de Montespan, as all Paris knows, obtained
+my pension for me after the death of the Queen-mother.  This service,
+comparable with a favour, will always remain in my heart and my memory. I
+have thanked her a thousand times for it, and I always shall thank her
+for it.  At the time when the young Queen of Portugal charged herself
+with my fate and fortune, the Marquise, who had known me at the Hotel
+d'Albret, desired to retain me in France, where she destined for me the
+children of the King.  I did what she desired; I took charge of his
+numerous children out of respect for my benefactor, and attachment to
+herself.  To-day, when their first education is completed, and his
+Majesty has recompensed me with the gift of the Maintenon estate, the
+Marquise pretends that my role is finished, that I was wrong to let
+myself be made lady in waiting, and that the recognition due to her
+imposes an obligation on me to obey her in everything, and withdraw from
+this neighbourhood.
+
+NINON DE L'ENCLOS.--Absolutely
+
+MADAME DE MAINTENON.--Yes, really, I assure you.
+
+NINON DE L'ENCLOS.--A departure?  An absolute retreat?  Oh, it is too
+much!  Does she wish you, then, to resign your office?
+
+MADAME DE MAINTINON.--I cannot but think so, mademoiselle.
+
+NINON DE L'ENCLOS.--Speaking personally, and for my private satisfaction,
+I should be enchanted to see you quit the Court and return to society.
+Society is your element.  You know it by heart; you have shone there, and
+there you would shine again.  On reappearing, you would see yourself
+instantly surrounded by those delicate and (pardon the expression)
+sensuous minds who applauded with such delight your agreeable stories,
+your brilliant and solid conversation.  Those pleasant, idle hours were
+lost to us when you left us, and I shall always remember them.  At the
+Court, where etiquette selects our words, as it rules our attitudes, you
+cannot be yourself; I must confess that frankly.  You do not paint your
+lovely face, and I am obliged to you for that, madame; but it is
+impossible for you to refrain from somewhat colouring your discourse, not
+with the King, perhaps, whose always calm gaze transparently reveals the
+man of honour, but with those eminences, those grandeurs, those royal and
+serene highnesses, whose artificial and factitious perfumes already
+filled your chapel before the incense of the sacrifice had wreathed its
+clouds round the high altar.
+
+The King, suddenly showing himself, somewhat to the surprise of the
+ladies, said: "I have long wished, mademoiselle, this unique and
+agreeable opportunity for which I am indebted to Madame de Maintenon. Be
+seated, I pray you, and permit 'my Highness', slightly perfumed though I
+be, to enjoy for a moment your witty conversation and society.  What! The
+atmosphere does not meet with your approval, and, in order to have
+madame's society, you desire to disgust her with it herself, and deprive
+us of her?"
+
+"Sire," answered Ninon, "I have not enough power or authority to render
+my intentions formidable, and my long regrets will be excused, I hope,
+since, if madame left Versailles, she would cause the same grief there
+that she has caused us."
+
+"One has one's detractors in every conceivable locality.  If Madame de
+Maintenon has met with one at Versailles she would not be exempt from
+them anywhere else.  At Paris, you would be without rampart or armour, I
+like to believe; but deign to grant me this preference,--I can very well
+protect my friends.  I think the town is ill-informed, and that Madame de
+Montespan has no interest in separating madame from her children, who are
+also mine.
+
+"You will greatly oblige me, mademoiselle, if you will adopt this opinion
+and publish it in your society, which is always select, though it is so
+numerous."
+
+Then the King, passing to other subjects, brought up, of his own accord,
+the place of farmer-general, which happened to be vacant; and he said to
+Mademoiselle de l'Enclos: "I promise you this favour with pleasure, the
+first which you have ever solicited of me, and I must beg you to address
+yourself to Madame de Maintenon on every occasion when your relations or
+yourself have something to ask from me.  You must see clearly,
+mademoiselle, that it is well to leave madame in this place, as an agent
+with me for you, and your particular ambassadress."
+
+I learnt all these curious details five or six days later from a young
+colonel, related to me, to whom Mademoiselle de l'Enclos narrated her
+admission and interview at Versailles.  In reproducing the whole of this
+scene, I have not altered the sense of a word; I have only sought to make
+up for the charm which every conversation loses that is reported by a
+third party who was not actually an eyewitness.
+
+This confidence informed me that prejudices were springing up against me
+in the mind of the favourite.  I went to see her, as though my visit were
+an ordinary one, and asked her what one was to think of Ninon's interview
+with the King.
+
+"Yes," she said, "his Majesty has for a long time past had a great desire
+to see her, as a person of much wit, and of whom he has heard people
+speak since his youth.  He imagined her to have larger eyes, and
+something a little more virile in her physiognomy.  He was greatly, and,
+I must say, agreeably surprised, to find that he had been deceived. 'One
+can see eyes of far greater size,' his Majesty told me, 'but not more
+brilliant, more animated or amiable.  Her mouth, admirably moulded, is
+almost as small as Madame de Montespan's.  Her pretty, almost round face
+has something Georgian about it, unless I am mistaken.  She says, and
+lets you understand, everything she likes; she awaits your replies
+without interruption; her contradictions preserve urbanity; she is
+respectful without servility; her pleasant voice, although not of silver,
+is none the less the voice of a nymph.  In conclusion, I am charmed with
+her.'"
+
+"Does she believe me hostile to your prosperity, my dear Marquise?"  I
+said at once to Madame de Maintenon, who seemed slightly confused, and
+answered: "Mademoiselle de l'Enclos is not personally of that opinion;
+she had heard certain remarks to that effect in the salons of the town;
+and I have given her my most explicit assurance that, if you should ever
+cease to care for me, my inclination and my gratitude would be none the
+less yours, madame, so long as I should live."
+
+"You owe me those sentiments," I resumed, with a trifle too much fire; "I
+have a right to count on them.  But it is most painful to me, I confess,
+after having given all my youth to the King, to see him now cool down,
+even in his courtesy.  The hours which he used to pass with me he gives
+to you, and it is impossible that this innovation should not seem
+startling here, since all Paris is informed of it, and Mademoiselle de
+l'Enclos has discussed it with you."
+
+"I owe everything that I am to the goodness of the King," she answered
+me.  "Would you have me, when he comes to me, bid him go elsewhere, to
+you or somebody else, it matters not?"
+
+"No, but I should be glad if your countenance did not, at such a moment,
+expand like a sunflower; I should like you, at the risk of somewhat
+belying yourself, to have the strength to moderate and restrain that vein
+of talk and conversation of which you have given yourself the supremacy
+and monopoly; I wish you had the generosity to show, now and again, less
+wit.  This sort of regime and abstinence would not destroy you off-hand,
+and the worst that could result to you from it would be to pass in his
+eyes for a woman of a variable and intermittent wit; what a great
+calamity!"
+
+"Ah, madame, what is it you suggest!" the lady in waiting replied to me,
+almost taking offence.  "I have never been eccentric or singular with any
+one in the world, and you want me to begin with my King!  It cannot be, I
+assure you!  Suggest to me reasonable and possible things, and I will
+enter into all your views with all my heart and without hesitation."
+
+This reply shocked me to the point of irritation.
+
+"I believed you long to be a simple and disinterested soul," I said to
+her, "and it was in this belief that I gave you my cordial affection. Now
+I read your heart, and all your projects are revealed to me.  You are not
+only greedy of respect and consideration, you are ambitious to the point
+of madness.  The King's widowhood has awakened all your wild dreams; you
+confided to me fifteen years ago that the soothsayer of the Marechale
+d'Albret had predicted for you a sceptre and a crown."
+
+At these words, the governess made me a sign to lower my voice, and said
+to me, with an accent of candour and good faith, which it is impossible
+for me to forget: "I confided to you at the time that puerility of
+society, just as the Marechale and the Marshal (without believing it)
+related it to all France.  But this prognostication need not alarm you,
+madame," she added; "a King like ours is incapable of such an
+extravagance, and if he were to determine on it, it would not have my
+countenance nor approval.
+
+"I do not think that thus far I have passed due limits; the granddaughter
+of a great noble, of a first gentleman of the chamber, I have been able
+to become a lady in waiting without offending the eyes; but the lady in
+waiting will never be Queen, and I give you my permission to insult me
+publicly when I am."
+
+Such was this conversation, to which I have not added a word.  We shall
+see soon how Madame de Maintenon kept her word to me, and if I am not
+right in owing her a grudge for this promise with a double meaning, with
+which it was her caprice to decoy me by her shuffling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+Birth of the Duc d'Anjou.--The Present to the Mother.--The Casket of
+Patience.--Departure of the King for the Army.--The King Turns a Deaf
+Ear.--How That Concerns Madame de Maintenon.--The Prisoner of the
+Bastille.--The Danger of Caricatures.--The Administrative
+Thermometer.--Actors Who Can neither Be Applauded nor Hissed.--Relapse of
+the Prisoner.--Scarron's Will.--A Fine Subject for Engraving.--Madame de
+Maintenon's Opinion upon the Jesuits.--The Audience of the Green
+Salon.--Portions from the Refectory.--Madame de Maintenon's Presence of
+Mind.--I Will Make You Schoolmaster.
+
+
+Madame la Dauphine, greatly pleased with her new position, in that she
+represented the person of the Queen, had already given birth to M. le Duc
+de Bourgogne; she now brought into the world a second son, who was at
+once entitled Duc d'Anjou.  The King, to thank her for this gift, made
+her a present of an oriental casket, which could only be opened by a
+secret spring, and that not before one had essayed it for half an hour.
+Madame la Dauphine found in it a superb set of pearls and four thousand
+new louis d'or.  As she had no generosity in her heart, she bestowed no
+bounties on her entourage.  The King this year made an expedition to
+Flanders.  Before getting into his carriage he came and passed half an
+hour or forty minutes with me, and asked me if I should not go and pass
+the time of his absence at the Petit-Bourg.
+
+"At Petit-Bourg and at Bourbon," I answered, "unless you allow me to
+accompany you."  He feigned not to have heard me, and said: "Lauzun, who,
+eleven or twelve years ago, refused the baton of a marshal of France,
+asks to accompany me into Flanders as aide-de-camp.  Purge his mind of
+such ideas, and give him to understand that his part is played out with
+me."
+
+"What business is it of mine," I asked with vivacity, "to teach M. de
+Lauzun how to behave?  Let Madame de Maintenon charge herself with these
+homilies; she is in office, and I am there no longer."
+
+These words troubled the King; he said to me:
+
+"You will do well to go to Bourbon until my return from Flanders."
+
+He left on the following day, and the same day I took my departure. I
+went to spend a week at my little convent of Saint Joseph, where the
+ladies, who thought I was still in favour, received me with marks of
+attention and their accustomed respect.  On the third day, the prioress,
+announcing herself by my second waiting-woman, came to present me with a
+kind of petition or prayer, which, I confess, surprised me greatly, as I
+had never commissioned any one to practise severity in my name.
+
+A man, detained at the Bastille for the last twelve years, implored me in
+this document to have compassion on his sufferings, and to give orders
+which would strike off his chains and irons.
+
+"My intention," he said, "was not, madame, to offend or harm you. Artists
+are somewhat feather-headed, and I was then only twenty."  This petition
+was signed "Hathelin, prisoner of State."  I had my horses put in my
+carriage at once, and betook myself to the chateau of the Bastille, the
+Governor of which I knew.
+
+When I set foot in this formidable fortress, in spite of myself I
+experienced a thrill of terror.
+
+The attentions of public men are a thermometer, which, instead of our own
+notions, is very capable of letting us know the just degree of our
+favour.  The Governor of the Bastille, some months before, would have
+saluted me with his artillery; perhaps he still received me with a
+certain ceremony, but without putting any ardour into his politeness, or
+drawing too much upon himself.  In such circumstances one must see
+without regarding these insults of meanness, and, by a contrivance of
+distraction, escape from vile affronts.  The object of my expedition
+being explained, the Governor found on his register that poor Hathelin,
+aged thirty-two to thirty-four years, was an engraver by profession. The
+lieutenant-general of police had arrested him long ago for a comic or
+satirical engraving on the subject of M. le Marquis de Montespan and the
+King.
+
+I desired to see Hathelin, quite determined to ask his pardon for all his
+sufferings, with which I was going to occupy myself exclusively until I
+was successful.  The Governor, a man all formality and pride, told me
+that he had not the necessary authority for this communication; I was
+obliged to return to my carriage without having tranquillised my poor
+captive.
+
+The same evening I called upon the lieutenant-general of police, and,
+after having eloquently pleaded the cause of this forgotten young man, I
+discovered that there was no 'lettre de cachet' to his prejudice, and
+procured his liberation.
+
+He came to pay his respects and thanks to me, in my parlour at Saint
+Joseph, on the very day of his liberation.  He seemed to me much younger
+than his age, which astonished me greatly after his misfortunes.  I gave
+him six thousand francs, in order to indemnify him slightly for that
+horrible Bastille.  At first he hesitated to take them.
+
+"Let your captivity be a lesson to you," I said to him; "the affairs of
+kings do not concern us.  When such actors occupy the scene, it is
+permissible neither to applaud nor to hiss."
+
+Hathelin promised me to be good, and for the future to concern himself
+only with his graver and his private business.  He wished me a thousand
+good wishes, with an expansion of heart which caused his tears and mine
+to flow.  But artists are not made like other men; he, for all his good
+heart, was gifted with one of those ardent imaginations which make
+themselves critics and judges of notable personages, and, above all, of
+favourites of fortune.  Barely five or six months had elapsed when
+Hathelin published a new satirical plate, in which Madame de Maintenon
+was represented as weeping, or pretending to weep, over the sick-bed of
+M. Scarron.  The dying man was holding an open will in his hand, in which
+one could read these words: "I leave you my permission to marry again--a
+rich and serious man--more so than I am."
+
+The print had already been widely distributed when the engraver and his
+plate were seized.  This time Hathelin had not the honour of the
+Bastille; he was sent to some depot.  And although his action was
+absolutely fresh and unknown to me, all Paris was convinced that I had
+inspired his unfortunate talent.  Madame de Maintenon was convinced of
+it, and believes it still.  The King has done me the honour to assure me
+lately that he had banished the idea from his mind; but he was so
+persuaded of it at first that he could not pardon me for so black an
+intrigue, and, but for the fear of scandal, would have hanged the
+engraver, Hathelin, in order to provide my gentlemen, the engravers, with
+a subject for a fine plate.
+
+About the same time, the Jesuits caused Madame de Maintenon a much more
+acute pain than that of the ridiculous print.  She endured this blow with
+her accustomed courage; nevertheless, she conceived such a profound
+aversion to the leaders of this ever-restless company, that she has never
+been seen in their churches, and was at the greatest pains to rob them of
+the interior of Saint Cyr.  "They are men of intrigue," she said to
+Madame de Montchevreuil, her friend and confidante.  "The name of Jesus
+is always in their mouths, he is in their solemn device, they have taken
+him for their banner and namesake; but his candour, his humility are
+unknown to them.  They would like to order everything that exists, and
+rule even in the palaces of kings.  Since they have the privilege and
+honour of confessing our monarch, they wish to impose the same bondage
+upon me.  Heaven preserve me from it!  I do not want rectors of colleges
+and professors to direct my unimportant conscience.  I like a confessor
+who lets you speak, and not those who put words into your mouth."
+
+With the intention of mortifying her and then of being able to publish
+the adventure, they charged one of their instruments to seek her out at
+Versailles in order to ask an audience of her, not as a Jesuit, but as a
+plain churchman fallen upon adversity.
+
+The petition of this man having been admitted, he received a printed form
+which authorised him to appear before madame at her time of good works,
+for she had her regular hours for everything.  He was introduced into the
+great green salon, which was destined, as one knows, for this kind of
+audience.  There were many people present, and before all this company
+this old fox thus unfolded himself:
+
+"Madame, I bless the Sovereign Dispenser of all things for what he has
+done for you; you have merited his protection from your tenderest youth.
+When, after your return from Martinique, you came to dwell in the little
+town of Niort, with your lady mother, I saw you often in our Jesuit
+church, which was at two paces from your house.  Your modesty, your
+youth, your respectful tenderness towards Madame la Baronne d'Aubigne,
+your excellent mother, attracted the attention of our community, who saw
+you every day in the temple with a fresh pleasure, as you can well
+imagine.  Madame la Baronne died; and we learnt that those tremendous
+lawsuits with the family not having been completed before her death, she
+left you, and M. Charles, your brother, in the most frightful poverty. At
+that news, our Fathers (who are so charitable, so compassionate) ordered
+me to reserve every day, for the two young orphans, two large portions
+from the refectory, and to bring them to you myself in your little
+lodging.
+
+"To-day, being no longer, owing to my health, in the congregation of the
+Jesuit Fathers, I should be glad to obtain a place conformable with my
+ancient occupations.  My good angel has inspired me with the thought,
+madame, to come and solicit your powerful protection and your good
+graces."
+
+Madame de Maintenon, having sustained this attack with fortitude, and it
+was not without vigour, replied to the petitioner: "I have had the honour
+of relating to his Majesty, not so very long ago, the painful and
+afflicting circumstance which you have just recalled to me.  Your
+companions, for one fortnight, were at the pains to send to my little
+brother and to me a portion of their food.  Our relations; who enjoyed
+all our property, had reduced us to indigence.  But, as soon as my
+position was ameliorated, I sent fifteen hundred francs to the Reverend
+Father Superior of the Jesuits for his charities.  That manner of
+reimbursement has not acquitted me, and I could not see an unfortunate
+man begging me for assistance without remembering what your house once
+did for me.  I do not remember your face, monsieur, but I believe your
+simple assertion.  If you are in holy orders I will recommend you to the
+Archbishop of Rouen, who will find you a place suitable for you.  Are you
+in holy orders?"
+
+"No, madame," replied the ex-Jesuit; "I was merely a lay brother."
+
+"In that case," replied the Marquise, "we can offer you a position as
+schoolmaster; and the Jesuit Fathers, if they have any esteem for you,
+should have rendered you this service, for they have the power to do
+that, and more."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Always sold at a loss which must be sold at a given moment
+Permissible neither to applaud nor to hiss
+Respectful without servility
+She awaits your replies without interruption
+These liars in surplice, in black cassock, or in purple
+Wish you had the generosity to show, now and again, less wit
+You know, madame, that he generally gets everything he wants
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan,
+Volume VI., by Madame La Marquise De Montespan
+
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+The Project Gutenberg The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, v6
+#6 in our series by Madame La Marquise De Montespan
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+Title: The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, v6
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+
+
+MEMOIRS OF MADAME LA MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN, v6
+
+Written by Herself
+
+Being the Historic Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV.
+
+
+
+BOOK 6.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+The Court Travels in Picardy and Flanders.--The Boudoir Navy.--Madame de
+Montespan Is Not Invited.--The King Relates to Her the Delights of the
+Journey.--Reflections of the Marquise.
+
+The King, consoled as he was for the death of the Duchesse de Fontanges,
+did not, on that account, return to that sweet and agreeable intimacy
+which had united us for the space of eleven or twelve years.  He
+approached me as one comes to see a person of one's acquaintance, and it
+was more than obvious that his only bond with me was his children.
+
+Being a man who loved pomp and show, he resolved upon a journey in
+Flanders,--a journey destined to furnish him, as well as his Court, with
+numerous and agreeable distractions, and to give fresh alarm to his
+neighbours.
+
+Those "Chambers of Reunion," as they were called, established at Metz and
+at Brisach, competed with each other in despoiling roundly a host of
+great proprietors, under the pretext that their possessions had formerly
+belonged to Alsace, and that this Alsace had been ceded to us by the last
+treaties.  The Prince Palatine of the Rhine saw himself stripped, on this
+occasion, of the greater part of the land which he had inherited from his
+ancestors, and when he would present a memoir on this subject to the
+ministers, M. de Croissy-Colbert answered politely that he was in despair
+at being unable to decide the matter himself; but that the Chambers of
+Metz and Brisach having been instituted to take cognisance of it, it was
+before these solemn tribunals that he must proceed.
+
+The Palatine lost, amongst other things, the entire county of Veldentz,
+which was joined to the church of the Chapter of Verdun.
+
+The King, followed by the Queen and all his Court,--by Monsieur le
+Dauphin, Madame la Dauphine and the legitimate princes, whom their
+households accompanied as well,--set out for Flanders in the month of
+July.  Madame de Maintenon, as lady in waiting, went on this journey; and
+of me, superintendent of the Queen's Council, they did not even speak.
+
+The first town at which this considerable Court stopped was at Boulogne,
+in Picardy, the fortifications of which were being repaired.  On the next
+day the King went on horseback to visit the port of Ambleteuse; thence he
+set out for Calais, following the line of the coast, while the ladies
+took the same course more rapidly.  He inspected the harbours and
+diverted himself by taking a sail in a wherry.  He then betook himself to
+Dunkirk, where the Marquis de Seignelay--son of Colbert--had made ready a
+very fine man-of-war with which to regale their Majesties.  The Chevalier
+de Ury, who commanded her, showed them all the handling of it, which was
+for those ladies, and for the Court, a spectacle as pleasant as it was
+novel.  The whole crew was very smart, and the vessel magnificently
+equipped.  There was a sham fight, and then the vessel was boarded.  The
+King took as much pleasure in this sight as if Fontanges had been the
+heroine of the fete, and our ladies, to please him, made their hands sore
+in applauding.  This naval fight terminated in a great feast, which left
+nothing to be desired in the matter of sumptuousness and delicacy.
+
+On the following day, there was a more formal fight between two frigates,
+which had also been prepared for this amusement.
+
+The King was in a galley as spectator; the Queen was in another.  The
+Chevalier de Lery took the helm of that of the King; the Capitaine de
+Selingue steered that of the Queen.  The sea was calm, and there was just
+enough wind to set the two frigates in motion.  They cannonaded one
+another briskly for an hour, getting the weather gauge in turn; after
+this, the combat came to an end, and they returned to the town to the
+sound of instruments and the noise of cannon.
+
+The King gave large bounties to the crew, as a token of his satisfaction.
+
+The prince was on board his first vessel, when the Earl of Oxford, and
+the Colonel, afterwards the Duke of Marlborough, despatched by the King
+of England, came to pay him a visit of compliment on behalf of that
+sovereign.
+
+The Duke of Villa-Hermosa, Spanish Governor of the Low Countries, paid
+him the same compliment in the name of his master.
+
+Both parties were given audience on this magnificent vessel, where M. de
+Seignelay had raised a sort of throne of immense height.
+
+(All this time Mademoiselle de Fontanges lay in her coffin, recovering
+from her confinement.)
+
+From Dunkirk the Court moved to Ypres, visiting all the places on the
+way, and arrived at Lille in Flanders on the 1st of August.  From Lille,
+where the diversions lasted five or six days, they moved to Valenciennes,
+thence to Condo, meeting everywhere with the same honours, the same
+tokens of gladness.  They returned to Sedan by Le Quenoy, Bouchain,
+Cambrai; and the end of the month of August found the Court once more at
+Versailles.
+
+I profited by this absence to go and breathe a little at my chateau of
+Petit-Bourg, where I was accompanied by Mademoiselle de Blois, and the
+young Comte de Toulouse; after which I betook myself to the mineral
+waters of Bourbonne, for which I have a predilection.
+
+On my return, the King related to me all these frivolous diversions of
+frigates and vessels that I have just mentioned; but with as much fire as
+if he had been but eighteen years old, and with the same cordiality as if
+I might have taken part in amusements from which he had excluded me.
+
+How is it that a clever man can forget the proprieties to such a degree,
+and expose himself to the secret judgments which must be formed of him,
+in spite of himself and however reluctantly?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+The Duchesse d'Orleans.--The Duchesse de Richelieu.--An Epigram of Madame
+de Maintenon.--An Epigram of the King to His Brother.
+
+Madame la Dauphine brought into the world a son, christened Louis at the
+font, to whom the King a few moments afterwards gave the title of the
+Duke of Burgundy.  We had become accustomed, little by little, to the
+face of this Dauphine, who (thanks to the counsels and instruction of her
+lady in waiting) adopted French manners promptly enough, succeeded in
+doing her hair in a satisfactory manner, and in making an appearance
+which met with general approval.  Madame de Maintenon, for all her
+politeness and forethought, never succeeded in pleasing her; and these
+two women, obliged to see each other often from their relative positions,
+suffered martyrdom when they met.
+
+The King, who had noticed it, began by resenting it from his daughter-
+in-law.  The latter, proud and haughty, like all these petty German
+royalties, thought herself too great a lady to give way.
+
+Madame de Maintenon had, near the person of the young Bavarian, two
+intermediaries of importance, who did not sing her praises from morn till
+eve.  The one was that Charlotte Elizabeth of Bavaria, whom I have
+already described to the life, who, furious at her personal
+monstrousness, could not as a rule forgive pretty women.  The other was
+the Duchesse de Richelieu, maid of honour to the Princess of Bavaria,
+once the protector of Madame Scarron, and now her antagonist, probably
+out of jealousy.
+
+These two acid tongues had taken possession of the Dauphine,--a character
+naturally prone to jealousy,--and they permitted themselves against the
+lady in waiting all the mockery and all the depreciation that one can
+permit oneself against the absent.
+
+Insinuations and abuse produced their effect so thoroughly that Madame de
+Maintenon grew disgusted with the duties of her office, and with the
+consent of the monarch she no longer appeared at the house of his
+daughter-in-law, except on state and gala occasions.  Madame de Richelieu
+related to me one day the annoyance and mortification of the new
+Marquise.
+
+"Madame d'Orleans came in one day," said she to me, "to Madame la
+Dauphine, where Madame de Maintenon was.  The Princess of the Palais
+Royal, who does not put herself about, as every one knows, greeted only
+the Dauphine and me.  She spoke of her health, which is neither good nor
+bad, and pretended that her gowns were growing too large for her, in
+proof that she was going thin.  'I do not know,' she added, brusquely,
+'what Madame Scarron does; she is always the same.'
+
+"The lady in waiting answered on the spot: 'Madame, no one finds you
+changed, either, and it is always the same thing.'
+
+"The half-polite, half-bantering tone of Madame de Maintenon nonplussed
+the Palatine for the moment; she wished to demand an explanation from the
+lady in waiting.  She took up her muff, without making a courtesy, and
+retired very swiftly."
+
+"I am scarcely, fond of Madame de Maintenon," said I to Madame de
+Richelieu, "but I like her answer exceedingly.  Madame is one of those
+great hermaphrodite bodies which the two sexes recognise and repulse at
+the same time.  She is an aggressive personage, whom her hideous face
+makes one associate naturally, with mastiffs; she is surly, like them,
+and, like them, she exposes herself to the blows of a stick.  It makes
+very little difference to me if she hears from you the portrait I have
+just made of her; you can tell her, and I shall certainly not give you
+the lie."
+
+Monsieur, having come some days afterwards to the King, complained of
+Madame de Maintenon, who, he said, had given offence to his wife.
+
+"You have just made a great mistake," said the King; "you who pride
+yourself on speaking your tongue so well, and I am going to put you
+right.  This is how you ought rather to have expressed yourself: 'I
+complain of Madame de Maintenon, who, by ambiguous words, has given
+offence, or wished to give offence to my wife.'"
+
+Monsieur made up his mind to laugh, and said no more of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+The Marquis de Lauzun at Liberty.--His Conduct to His Wife.--Recovery of
+Mademoiselle.
+
+Mademoiselle, having by means of her donations to the Duc du Maine
+obtained, at first, the release, and subsequently the entire liberty of
+Lauzun, wished to go to meet him and to receive him in a superb carriage
+with six horses.  The King had her informed secretly that she should
+manage matters with more moderation; and the King only spoke so because
+he was better informed than any one of the ungrateful aversion of Lauzun
+to Mademoiselle.  No one wished to open her eyes, for she had refused to
+see; time itself had to instruct her, and time, which wears wings,
+arrived at that result quickly enough.
+
+M. de Lauzun was, beyond gainsaying, a man of feeling and courage, but he
+nourished in his heart a limitless ambition, and his head, subject to
+whims and caprices, would not suffer him to follow methodically a fixed
+plan of conduct.  The King had just pardoned him as a favour to his
+cousin; but, knowing him well, he was not at all fond of him.  They had
+disposed of his office of Captain of the Guards and of the other command
+of the 'Becs de Corbins'.  It was decided that Lauzun should not return
+to his employment; but his Majesty charged Monsieur Colbert to make good
+to him the amount and to add to it the arrears.
+
+These different sums, added together, formed a capital of nine hundred
+and eighty thousand francs, which was paid at once in notes on the
+treasury, which were equal in value to ready cash.  On news of this, he
+broke into the most violent rage possible; he was tempted to throw these
+notes into the fire.  It was his offices which he wanted, and not these
+sums, with which he could do nothing.
+
+The King received him with an easy, kind air; he, always a flatterer
+with his lips, cast himself ten times on his knees before the prince,
+and gained nothing by all these demonstrations.  He went to rejoin
+Mademoiselle on the following day at Choisy, and dared to scold her for
+having constructed and even bought this pretty pleasure-house.
+
+"This must have cost treasures," said he.  "Had you not parks and
+chateaus enough?  It would have been better to keep all these sums and
+give them to me now."
+
+After this exordium, he set himself to criticise the coiffure of the
+Queen, on account of the coloured knots that he had remarked in it.
+
+"But you mean, then, to satirise me personally," said the Princess to
+him, "since you see my hair dressed in the same fashion, and I am older
+than my cousin!
+
+"What became of you on leaving the King?"  she asked him.  "I waited for
+you till two hours after midnight."
+
+"I went," said he, "to visit M. de Louvois, who is not my friend, and who
+requires humouring; then to visit M. Colbert, who favours me."
+
+"You ought to have seen Madame de Maintenon, I gave you that advice before
+leaving you," she said; "it is to her, above all, that you owe your
+liberty."
+
+"But your Madame de Maintenon," he resumed, "is she, too, one of the
+powers?  Ah, my God!  what a new geography since I left these regions ten
+years ago!"
+
+To avoid tete-a-tete, M. de Lauzun was always in a surly humour; he put
+his left arm into a sling; he never ceased talking of his rheumatism and
+his pains.
+
+Mademoiselle learned, now from one person, now from another, that he was
+dining to-day with one fair lady, to-morrow with another, and the next
+day with a third.  She finally understood that she was despised and
+tricked; she showed one last generosity (out of pride) towards her former
+friend,--solicited for him the title of Duke, and begged him, for the
+future, to arrange his life to please himself, and to let her alone.
+
+The Marquis de Lauzun took her at her word, and never forgave her for the
+cession of the principalities of Dombes and Eu to M. le Duc du Maine; he
+wanted them for himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+Progress of Madame de Maintenon.--The Anonymous Letter.
+
+Since the birth of Mademoiselle de Blois, and the death of Mademoiselle
+de Fontanges, the King hardly ever saw me except a few minutes
+ceremoniously,--a few minutes before and after supper.  He showed himself
+always assiduous with Madame de Maintenon, who, by her animated and
+unflagging talk, had the very profitable secret of keeping him amused.
+Although equally clever, I venture to flatter myself, in the art of
+manipulating speech, I could not stoop to such condescensions.  You
+cannot easily divert when you have a heart and are sincere--a man who
+deserts you, who does not even take the trouble to acknowledge it and
+excuse himself.
+
+The Marquise sailed, then, on the open sea, with all sail set; whilst my
+little barque did little more than tack about near the shore.  One day I
+received the following letter; it was in a pleasant and careful
+handwriting, and orthography was observed with complete regularity, which
+suggested that a man had been its writer, or its editor:
+
+     The person who writes these lines, Madame la Marquise, sees you but
+     rarely, but is none the less attached to you.  The advice which he
+     is going to give you in writing he would have made it a duty to come
+     and give you himself; he has been deterred by the fear either of
+     appearing to you indiscreet, or of finding you too deeply engrossed
+     with occupations, or with visitors, as is so often the case, in your
+     own apartments.
+
+     These visitors, this former affluence of greedy and interested
+     hearts, you will soon see revealed and diminishing; probably your
+     eyes, which are so alert, have already remarked this diminution.
+     The monarch no longer loves you; coolness and inconstancy are
+     maladies of the human heart.  In the midst of the most splendid
+     health, our King has for some time past experienced this malady.
+
+     In your place, I should not wait to see myself repudiated.  By
+     whatever outward respect such an injunction be accompanied, the
+     bottom of the cup is always the same, and the honey at the edge is
+     but a weak palliative.  Being no ordinary woman by birth, do not
+     terminate like an ordinary actress your splendid and magnificent
+     role on this great stage.  Know how to leave before the audience is
+     weary; while they can say, when they miss you from the scene, "She
+     was still fine in her role.  It is a pity!"
+
+     Since a new taste or new caprice of the monarch has led his
+     affections away, know how to endure a fantasy which you have not the
+     power to remove.  Despatch yourself with a good grace; and let the
+     world believe that sober reflections have come to you, and that you
+     return, of your own free will, into the paths of independence, of
+     true glory, and of honour.
+
+     Your position of superintendent with the Queen has been from the
+     very first almost a sinecure.  Give up to Madame de Maintenon, or to
+     any one else, a dignity which is of no use to you, for which you
+     will be paid now its full value; which, later, is likely to cause
+     you a sensible disappointment; for that is always sold at a loss
+     which must be sold at a given moment.
+
+     Nature, so prodigal to you, Madame la Marquise, has not yet
+     deflowered, nor recalled in the least degree, those graces and
+     attractions which were lavished on you.  Retire with the honours of
+     war.
+
+     Annoyance, vexation, irritation, do not make your veins flow with
+     milk and honey; you would lose upon the field of battle all those
+     treasures which it is in your power to save.
+
+     Adieu, madame.
+
+     This communication, though anonymous, is none the less benevolent.
+     I desire your peace and your happiness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+Madame de Maintenon at Loggerheads with Madame de Thianges.--The Mint of
+the D'Aubigne Family.--Creme de Negresse, the Elixir of Long Life.--
+Ninon's Secret for Beauty.--The King Would Remain Young or Become So.--
+Good-will of Madame de Maintenon.
+
+This letter was not, in my eyes, a masterpiece, but neither was it from a
+vulgar hand.  For a moment I suspected Madame de Maintenon.  She was
+named in it, it is true, as though by the way, but her interest in it was
+easy to discover, since the writer dared to try to induce me to sell her,
+to give up to her, my superintendence.  I communicated my suspicions to
+the Marquise de Thianges.  She said to me: "We must see her,--her face
+expresses her emotions very clearly; she is not good at lying; we shall
+easily extract her secret, and make her blush for her stratagem."
+
+Ibrahim, faithful to his old friendship for me, had recently sent me
+stuffs of Asia and essences of the seraglio, under the pretence of
+politeness and as a remembrance.  I wrote two lines to the Marquise,
+engaging her to come and sacrifice half an hour to me to admire with me
+these curiosities.  Suspecting nothing, she came to my apartments, when
+she accepted some perfumes, and found all these stuffs divine.  My
+sister, Madame de Thianges, said to her:
+
+"Madame, I do not wish to be the last to congratulate you on that
+boundless confidence and friendship that our Queen accords you.
+Assuredly, no one deserves more than you this feeling of preference;
+it appears that the princess is developing, and that, at last, she is
+taking a liking for choice conversation and for wit."
+
+"Madame," answered the lady in waiting, "her Majesty does not prefer me
+to any one here.  You are badly informed.  She has the goodness to accord
+to me a little confidence; and since she finds in me some facility in the
+Spanish tongue, of which she wishes to remain the idolater all her life,
+she loves to speak that tongue with me, catching me up when I go wrong
+either in the pronunciation or the grammar, as she desires to be
+corrected herself when she commits some offence against our French."
+
+"You were born," added Madame de Thianges, "to work at the education of
+kings.  It is true that few governesses or tutors are as amiable.  There
+is a sound in your voice which goes straight to the heart; and what
+others teach rudely or monotonously, you teach musically and almost
+singing.  Since the Queen loves your French and your Spanish, everything
+has been said; you are indispensable to her.  Things being so, I dare to
+propose to you, Madame, a third occupation, which will suit you better
+than anything else in the world, and which will complete the happiness of
+her Majesty.
+
+"Here is Madame de Montespan, who is growing disgusted with grandeur,
+after having recognised its emptiness, who is enthusiastically desiring
+to go and enjoy her House of Saint Joseph, and wishes to get rid of her
+superintendence forthwith, at any cost."
+
+"What!" said Madame de Maintenon.  Then to me, "You wish to sell your
+office without having first assured yourself whether it be pleasing to
+the King?  It appears to me that you are not acting on this occasion with
+the caution with which you are generally credited."
+
+"What need has she of so many preliminary cautions," added the Marquise,
+"if it is to you that she desires to sell it?  Her choice guarantees the
+consent of the princess; your name will make everything easy."
+
+"I reason quite otherwise, Madame la Marquise," replied the former
+governess of the princes; "the Queen may have her ideas.  It is right and
+fitting to find out first her intention and wishes."
+
+"Madame, madame," said my sister then, "everything has been sufficiently
+considered, and even approved of.  You will be the purchaser; you desire
+to buy, it is to you that one desires to sell."
+
+Madame de Maintenon began to laugh, and besought the Marquise to believe
+that she had neither the desire nor the money for that object.
+
+"Money," answered my sister, "will cause you no trouble on this occasion.
+Money has been coined in pour family."
+
+     [Constant d'Aubigne, father of Madame de Maintenon, in his wild
+     youth, was said to have taken refuge in a den of comers.--Ed. Note]
+
+Madame de Maintenon, profoundly moved, said to the Marquise:
+
+"I thought, madame, that I had come to see Madame de Montespan, to look
+at her stuffs from the seraglio, and not to receive insults.  All your
+teasing affects me, because up to to-day I believed in your kindly
+feeling.  It has been made clear to me now that I must put up with this
+loss; but, whatever be your injustice towards me, I will not depart from
+my customs or from my element.  The superintendence of the Queen's
+Council is for sale, or it is not; either way, it is all the same to me.
+I have never made any claim to this office, and I never shall."
+
+These words, of which I perceived the sincerity, touched me.  I made some
+trifling excuses to the lady in waiting, and, tired of all these
+insignificant mysteries, I went and took the anonymous letter from my
+bureau and showed it to the governess.
+
+She read it thoughtfully.  After having read it, she assured me that this
+script was a riddle to her.
+
+Madame de Maintenon, on leaving us, made quite a deep courtesy to my
+sister, which caused me pain, preserving an icy gravity and exaggerating
+her salutation and her courtesy.
+
+When we were alone, I confessed to the Marquise de Thianges that her
+words had passed all bounds, and that she could have reached her end by
+other means.
+
+"I cannot endure that woman," she answered.  "She knows that you have
+made her, that without you she would be languishing still in her little
+apartment in the Maree; and when for more than a year she sees you
+neglected by the King and almost deserted, she abandons you to your
+destiny, and does not condescend to offer you any consolation.  I have
+mortified her; I do not repent of it in the least, and every time that
+I come across her I shall permit myself that gratification.
+
+"What is she thinking of at her age; with her pretensions to a fine
+figure, an ethereal carriage, and beauty?  And yet it must be admitted
+that her complexion is not made up.  She has the sheen of the lily
+mingled with that of the rose, and her eyes exhibit a smiling vivacity
+which leaves our great coquettes of the day far behind!"
+
+"She is nature unadorned as far as her complexion goes, believe me," said
+I to my sister.  "During my constant journeys she has always slept at my
+side, and her face at waking has always been as at noon and all day long.
+She related to us once at the Marechale d'Albret's, where I knew her,
+that at Martinique--that distant country which was her cradle--an ancient
+negress, well preserved and robust, had been kind enough to take her into
+her dwelling.  This woman led her one day into the woods.  She stripped
+of its bark some shrub, after having sought it a long time.  She grated
+this bark and mixed it with the juice of chosen herbs.  She wrapped up
+all this concoction in half a banana skin, and gave the specific to the
+little D'Aubigne.
+
+"This mess having no nasty taste, the little girl consented to return
+fifteen or twenty times into the grove, where her negress carefully
+composed and served up to her the same feast.
+
+"'Why do you care to give me this green paste?' the young creole asked
+her one day.
+
+"The old woman said: 'My dear child, I cannot wait till you have enough
+sense to learn to understand these plants, for I love you as if you were
+my own daughter, and I want to leave you a secret which will cause you to
+live a long time.  Though I look as I do, I am 138 years old already.  I
+am the oldest person in the colony, and this paste that I make for you
+has preserved my strength and my freshness.  It will produce the same
+effect on my dear little girl, and will keep her young and pretty too for
+a long time.'
+
+"This negress, unhappily, fell asleep one day under a wild pear-tree in
+the Savannah, and a crocodile came out of the river hard by and devoured
+her."
+
+"I have heard tell," replied my sister, "that Mademoiselle d'Aubigne,
+after the death of her mother, or husband, was bound by the ties of a
+close friendship with Ninon de l'Enclos, whose beauty made such a
+sensation among the gallants, and still occupies them.
+
+"One was assured, you know, that Ninon possesses a potion, and that in
+her generosity to her friend, the fair Indian, she lent her her phial of
+elixir."
+
+"No, no," said I to the Marquise, "that piece of gallantry of Ninon is
+only a myth; it is the composition of Martinique, or of the negress,
+which is the real recipe of Madame de Maintenon.  She talked of it one
+day, when I was present, in the King's carriage.  His Majesty said to
+her: 'I am astonished that, with your natural intelligence, you have not
+kept in your mind the nature of this Indian shrub and herbs; with such a
+secret you would be able to-day to make many happy, and there are some
+kings, who, to grow young again, would give you half their empire.'
+
+"'I am not a worshipper of riches,' said this mistress of talk; 'bad
+kings might offer me all the treasures and crowns they liked, and I would
+not make them young again.'
+
+"'And me, madame,' said the prince, 'would you consent to make me young
+again?'
+
+"'You will not need it for a long time,' she replied, cleverly, with a
+smile; 'but when the moment comes, or is near, I should set about it with
+zeal.'
+
+"The whole carriage applauded this reply, and the King took the hand of
+the Marquise and insisted on kissing it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+The Casket of M. de Lauzun.--His Historical Gallery.--He Makes Some Nuns.
+--M. de Lauzun in the Lottery.--The Loser Wins.--Queen out of Pique.--
+Letter from the Queen of Portugal.--The Ingratitude of M. de Lauzun.
+
+Twice during the captivity of M. de Lauzun the Queen of Portugal had
+charged her ambassador to carry to the King that young sovereign's
+solicitations in favour of the disgraced gentleman.  Each time the
+negotiators had been answered with vague and ambiguous words; with those
+promises which potentates are not chary of, even between themselves, and
+which we poor mortals of the second rank call Court holy water.  These
+exertions of the Court of Lisbon were speedily discovered, and it then
+became known how many women of high degree M. de Peguilain had the honour
+of fluttering.  The officer of D'Artagnan, who had the task of seizing
+his papers when he was arrested to be taken to Pignerol, was obliged, in
+the course of his duty, to open a rather large casket, where he found the
+portraits of more than sixty women, of whom the greater number lived
+almost in the odour of sanctity.  There were descriptive or biographical
+notes upon all these heroines, and correspondence to match.  His Majesty
+had cognisance of it, and forbade the publication of the names.  But the
+Marquis d'Artagnan and his subordinate officer committed some almost
+inevitable indiscretions, and all these ladies found their names public
+property.  Several of them, who were either widows or young ladies,
+retired into convents, not daring to show their faces in the light of
+day.
+
+The Queen of Portugal, before this scandal, had passionately loved the
+Marquis de Lauzun.  She was then called Mademoiselle d'Aumale, and her
+sister who was soon afterwards Duchess of Savoy was called at Paris
+Mademoiselle de Nemours.  These two princesses, after having exchanged
+confidences and confessions, were astonished and grieved to find
+themselves antagonists and rivals.  Happily they had a saving wit, both
+of them, and made a treaty of peace, by which it was recognised and
+agreed that, since their patrimony was small, it should be neither
+divided nor drawn upon, in order that it might make of M. de Lauzun, when
+he came to marry, a rich man and a great lord.  The two rivals, in the
+excess of their love, stipulated that this indivisible inheritance should
+be drawn for by lot, that the victorious number should have M. de Lauzun
+thrown in, and that the losing number should go and bury herself in a
+convent.
+
+Mademoiselle d'Aumale--that is to say, the pretty blonde--won M. de
+Lauzun; but he, being bizarre in his tastes, and who only had a fancy for
+the brunette (the less charming of the two), went and besought the King
+to refuse his consent.
+
+Mademoiselle d'Aumale thought of dying of grief and pique, and, as a
+consequence of her despair, listened to the proposals of the King of
+Portugal, and consented to take a crown.
+
+The disgrace and imprisonment of her old friend having reached her ear,
+this princess gave him the honour of her tears, although she had two
+husbands alive.  Twice she had solicited his liberty, which was certainly
+not granted in answer to her prayers.
+
+When she learned of the release of the prisoner, she showed her joy
+publicly at it, in the middle of her Court; wrote her congratulations
+upon it to Mademoiselle, apparently to annoy her, and, a few days
+afterwards, indited with her own hand the letter you are going to read,
+addressed to the King, which was variously criticised.
+
+
+                    TO HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF FRANCE.
+
+     BROTHER:--Kings owe one another no account of their motives of
+     action, especially when their authority falls heavily upon the
+     officers of their own palace, till then invested with their
+     confidence and overwhelmed with the tokens of their kindness.  The
+     disgrace of the Marquis de Lauzun can only appear in my eyes an act
+     of justice, coming as it does from the justest of sovereigns.  So I
+     confined myself in the past to soliciting for this lord--gifted with
+     all the talents, with bravery and merit--your Majesty's pity and
+     indulgence.  He owed later the end of his suffering, not to my
+     instances, but to your magnanimity.  I rejoice at the change in his
+     destiny, and I have charged my ambassador at your Court to express
+     my sincere participation in it.  To-day, Sire, I beg you to accept
+     my thanks.  M. de Lauzun, so they assure me, has not been restored
+     to his offices, and though still young, does not obtain employment
+     in his country, where men of feeling and of talent are innumerable.
+     Allow us, Sire, to summon this exceptional gentleman to my State,
+     where French officers win easily the kindly feelings of my nobles,
+     accustomed as they are to cherish all that is born in your
+     illustrious Empire.  I will give M. de Lauzun a command worthy of
+     him, worthy of me,--a command that will enable him to render lasting
+     and essential services to my Crown and to yours.  Do not refuse me
+     this favour, which does not at all impoverish your armies, and which
+     may be of use to a kingdom of which you are the protector and the
+     friend.
+                         Accept, Sire, etc.
+
+
+I did not see the answer which was vouchsafed to this singular letter;
+the King did not judge me worthy to enjoy such confidence that he had
+made no difficulty in granting to me formerly; but he confided in Madame
+de Maintenon, and even charged her to obtain the opinion of Mademoiselle
+touching this matter, and Mademoiselle, who never hid aught from me,
+brought the details of it to my country-house.
+
+This Princess, now enlightened as to the falseness of Monsieur de Lauzun,
+entreated the King to give up this gentleman to the blond Queen, or to
+give him a command himself.
+
+The Marquis de Lauzun, having learnt the steps taken by the Queen of
+Portugal, whom he had never been able to endure, grew violently angry,
+and said in twenty houses that he had not come out of one prison to throw
+himself into another.
+
+These were all the thanks the Queen got for her efforts; and, like
+Mademoiselle de Montpensier, she detested, with all her soul, the man
+she had loved with all her heart.
+
+The Marquis de Lauzun was one of the handsomest men in the world; but his
+character spoiled everything.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+The Nephews, the Nieces, the Cousins and the Brother of Madame de
+Maintenon.--The King's Debut.--The Marshal's Silver Staff.
+
+The family of Madame de Maintenon had not only neglected but despised her
+when she was poor and living on her pension of two thousand francs.
+Since my protection and favour had brought her into contact with the sun
+that gives life to all things, and this radiant star had shed on-her his
+own proper rays and light, all her relatives in the direct, oblique, and
+collateral line had remembered her, and one saw no one but them in her
+antechambers, in her chamber, and at Court.
+
+Some of them were not examples of deportment and good breeding; they were
+gentlemen who had spent all their lives in little castles in Angoumois
+and Poitou, a kind of noble ploughmen, who had only their silver swords
+to distinguish them from their vine-growers and herds.  Others, to be
+just, honoured the new position of the Marquise; and amongst those I must
+place first the Marquis de Langallerie and the two sons of the Marquis de
+Villette, his cousin, german.  The Abbe d'Aubigne, whom she had
+discovered obscurely hidden among the priests of Saint Sulpice, she had
+herself presented to the King, who had discovered in him the air of an
+apostle, and then to Pere de la Chaise, who had hastened to make him
+Archbishop of Rouen, reserving for him 'in petto' the cardinal's hat, if
+the favour of the lady in waiting was maintained.
+
+Among her lady relatives who had come from the provinces at the rumour of
+this favour, the Marquise distinguished and exhibited with satisfaction
+the three Mademoiselles de Sainte Hermine, the daughters of a Villette,
+if I am not mistaken, and pretty and graceful all three of them.  She had
+also brought to her Court, and more particularly attached to her person,
+a very pretty child, only daughter of the Marquis de Villette, and
+sister, consequently, of the Comte and of the Chevalier de Villette, whom
+I have previously mentioned.  This swarm of nephews, cousins, and nieces
+garnished the armchairs and sofas of her chamber.  They served as
+comrades and playfellows to the legitimate princes and as pages of honour
+to my daughter; and when the carriage of the Marquise came into the
+country for her drives, the whole of this pretty colony formed a train
+and court for her,--a proof of her credit.
+
+The Marquise had a brother, her elder by four or five years, to whom she
+was greatly attached, judging from what we heard her say, and to promote
+whom we saw her work from the very first.  This brother, who was called
+Le Comte d'Aubigne, lacked neither charm nor grace.  He even assumed,
+when he wished, an excellent manner; but this cavalier, his own master
+from his childhood, knew no other law but his own pleasures and desires.
+He had made people talk about him in his earliest youth; he awoke the
+same buzz of scandal now that he was fifty.  Madame de Maintenon, hoping
+to reform him, and wishing to constrain him to beget them an heir, made
+him consent to the bonds of marriage.  She had just discovered a very
+pretty heiress of very good family, when he married secretly the daughter
+of a mere 'procureur du roi'.  The lady in waiting, being unable to undo
+what had been done, submitted to this unequal alliance; and as her
+sister-in-law, ennobled by her husband, was none the less a countess,
+she, too, was presented.
+
+The young person, aged fifteen at the most, was naturally very bashful.
+When she found herself in this vast hall, between a double row of persons
+of importance, whose fixed gaze never left her, she forgot all the bows,
+all the elaborate courtesies,--in fine, all the difficult procedure of a
+formal presentation, that her sister-in-law and dancing-masters had been
+making her rehearse for twenty days past.
+
+The child lost her head, and burst into tears.  The King took compassion
+on her, and despatched the Comtesse de Merinville to go and act as her
+guide or mistress.  Supported by this guardian angel, Madame d'Aubigne
+gained heart; she went through her pausing, her interrupted courtesies,
+to the end, and came in fairly good countenance to the King's chair, who
+smiled encouragement upon her.  While these things were taking place in
+the gallery, Madame de Maintenon, in despair, her eyes full of tears, had
+to make an effort not to weep.  With that wit of which she is so proud,
+she should have been the first to laugh at this piece of childishness,
+which was not particularly new.  The embarrassment, the torture in which
+I saw her, filled me with a strong desire to laugh.  It was noticed; it
+was held a crime; and his Majesty himself was kind enough to scold me for
+it.
+
+"I felt the same embarrassment," he said to us, "the first time Monsieur
+le Cardinal desired to put me forward.  It was a question of receiving an
+ambassador, and of making a short reply to his ceremonial address.  I
+knew my reply by heart; it was not more than eight or ten lines at the
+most.  I was repeating it every minute while at play, for five or six
+days.  When it was necessary to perform in person before this throng, my
+childish memory was confused.  All my part was forgotten in my fear, and
+I could only utter these words: 'Your address, Monsieur Ambassadeur,--
+Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, your address.'  My mother, the Queen, grew very
+red, and was as confused as I was.  But my godfather, the Cardinal,
+finished this reply for me, which he had composed himself, and was
+pleased to see me out of the difficulty."
+
+This anecdote, evidently related to console the Marquise, filled her with
+gratitude.  They spoke of nothing else at Versailles for two days; after
+which, Madame la Comtesse d'Aubigne became, in her turn, a woman of
+experience, who judged the new debutantes severely, perhaps, every time
+that the occasion arose.
+
+The Comte d'Aubigne passed from an inferior government to a government of
+some importance.  He made himself beloved by endorsing a thousand
+petitions destined for his sister, the monarch's friend; but his
+immoderate expenditure caused him to contract debts that his sister would
+only pay five or six times.
+
+The Duc de Vivonne, my brother, laughed at him in society; he unceasingly
+outraged by his clumsiness his sister's sense of discretion.  One day, in
+a gaming-house, seeing the table covered with gold, the Marshal exclaimed
+at the door: "I will wager that D'Aubigne is here, and makes all this
+display; it is a magnificence worthy of him."
+
+"Yes, truly," said the brother of the favourite; "I have received my
+silver staff, you see!"  That was an uncouth impertinence, for assuredly
+M. de Vivonne had not owed this dignity to my favour.  The siege of
+Candia, and a thousand other distinguished actions, in which he had
+immortalised himself, called him to this exalted position, which I dare
+to say he has even rendered illustrious.
+
+The Comte d'Aubigne's saying was no less successful on that account, and
+his sister, who did not approve at all of this scandalous scene, had the
+good sense to condemn her most ridiculous gamester, and to make excuses
+for him to my brother and me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+Political Intrigue in Hungary.--Dignity of the King of the Romans.--The
+Good Appearance of a German Prince.--The Turks at Vienna.--The Duc de
+Lorraine.--The King of Rome.
+
+Whatever the conduct of the King may have been towards me, I do not write
+out of resentment or to avenge myself.  But in the midst of the peace
+which the leisure that he has given me leaves me, I feel some
+satisfaction in inditing the memoirs of my life, which was attached to
+his so closely, and wish to relate with sincerity the things I have seen.
+What would be the use of memoirs from which sincerity were absent?  Whom
+could they inspire with a desire of reading them?
+
+The King was born profoundly ambitious.  All the actions of his public
+life bore witness to it.  It would be useless for him to rebut the
+charge; all his aims, all his political work, all his sieges, all his
+battles, all his bloody exploits prove it.  He had robbed the Emperor of
+an immense quantity of towns and territories in succession.  The
+greatness of the House of Austria irritated him.  He had begun by
+weakening it in order to dominate it; and, in bringing it under his sway,
+he hoped to draw to himself the respect and submission of the Germanic
+Electoral body, and cause the Imperial Crown to pass to his house, as
+soon as the occasion should present itself.
+
+We had often heard him say: "Monseigneur has all the good appearance of a
+German prince."  This singular compliment, this praise, was not without
+motive.  The King wished that this opinion and this portrait should go
+straight into Germany, and create there a kind of naturalisation and
+adoption for his son.
+
+He had resolved to have him elected and proclaimed King of the Romans,
+a dignity which opens, as one knows, the road to the imperial greatness.
+To attain this result, his Majesty, seconded perfectly by his minister,
+Louvois, employed the following means.
+
+By his order M. de Louvois sent the Comte de Nointel to Vienna, at the
+moment when that Power was working to extend the twenty years' truce
+concluded by Hungary with the Sultan.  The French envoy promised secretly
+his adhesion to the Turks; and the latter, delighted at the intervention
+of the French, became so overbearing towards the Imperial Crown that that
+Power was reduced to refusing too severe conditions.
+
+Sustained by the insinuations and the promises of France, the Sultan
+demanded that Hungary should be left in the state in which it was in
+1655; that henceforward that kingdom should pay him an annual tribute of
+fifty thousand florins; that the fortifications of Leopoldstadt and Gratz
+should be destroyed; that the chief of the revolted towns--Nitria, Eckof,
+the Island of Schutt, and the fort of Murann, at Tekelai--should be
+ceded; that there should be a general amnesty and restitution of their
+estates, dignities, offices, and privileges without restriction.
+
+By this the infidels would have found themselves masters of the whole of
+Hungary, and would have been able to come to the very gates of Vienna,
+without fear of military commanders or of the Emperor.  It was obvious
+that they were only seeking a pretext for a quarrel, and that at the
+suggestion of France, which was quite disposed to profit by the occasion.
+
+The Sultan knew very little of our King.  The latter had his army ready;
+his plan was to enter, or rather to fall upon, the imperial territories,
+when the consternation and the danger in them should be at their height;
+and then he counted on turning to his advantage the good-will of the
+German princes, who, to be extricated from their difficulty, would not
+fail to offer to himself, as liberator, the Imperial Crown, or, at least,
+the dignity of King of the Romans and Vicar of the Empire to his son,
+Monseigneur le Dauphin.
+
+In effect, hostilities had hardly commenced on the part of the Turks,
+hardly had their first successes, struck terror into the heart of the
+German Empire, when the King, the real political author of these
+disasters, proposed to the German Emperor to intervene suddenly, as
+auxiliary, and even to restore Lorraine to him, and his new conquests,
+on condition that the dignity of the King of the Romans should be
+bestowed on his son.  France, this election once proclaimed, engaged
+herself to bring an army of 60,000 men, nominally of the King of the
+Romans, into Hungary, to drive out utterly the common enemy.  German
+officers would be admitted, like French, into this Roman army; and more,
+the King of France and the new King of the Romans engaged themselves to
+set back the imperial frontiers on that side as far as Belgrade, or
+Weissembourg in Greece.  A powerful fleet was to appear in the
+Mediterranean to support these operations; and the King, wishing to crown
+his generosity, offered to renounce forever the ancient possessions, and
+all the rights of Charlemagne, his acknowledged forefather or ancestor.
+
+Whilst these dreams of ambition were being seriously presented to the
+unhappy Imperial Court of Vienna, the Turks, to the number of 300,000
+men, had swept across Hungary like a torrent.  They arrived before the
+capital of the Empire of Germany just at the moment when the Court had
+left it.  They immediately invested this panic-stricken town, and the
+inhabitants of Vienna believed themselves lost.  But the young Duc de
+Lorraine, our King's implacable enemy, had left the capital in the best
+condition and pitched outside Vienna, in a position from which he could
+severely harass the besieging Turks.
+
+He tormented them, he raided them, while he waited for the saving
+reinforcements which were to be brought up by the King of Poland, and the
+natural allies of the Empire.  This succour arrived at last, and after
+four or five combats, well directed and most bloody, they threw the
+Ottomans into disorder.  The Duc de Lorraine immortalised himself during
+this brilliant campaign, which he finished by annihilating the Turks near
+Barkan.
+
+France had remained in a state of inaction in the midst of all these
+great events.  I saw the discomfiture of our ministers and the King when
+the success of the Imperialists reached them.  But the time had passed
+when my affections and those of my master were akin.  Free from
+henceforth to follow the impulses of my conscience and of my sense of
+justice, I rejoiced sincerely at the great qualities of the poor Duc de
+Lorraine, and at the humiliation of the cruel Turks, who had been so
+misled.
+
+The elective princes of the Germanic Empire once more rallied round their
+august head, and disavowed almost all their secret communications with
+the Cabinet of Versailles.  The Emperor, having escaped from these great
+perils, addressed some noble and touching complaints to our monarch; and
+Monseigneur was not elected King of the Romans,--a disappointment which
+he hardly noticed, and by which he was very little disturbed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+The Prince of Orange.--The Orange Coach.--The Bowls of Oranges.--The
+Orange Blossoms.--The Town of Orange.--Jesuits of Orange.--Revocation of
+the Edict of Nantes.
+
+The King, by the last peace, signed at Nimegue, had engaged to restore
+the Principality of Orange to William, Stadtholder and Generalissimo of
+the Dutch.  This article was one of those which he had found most
+repugnant to him, for nothing can be compared with the profound aversion
+which the mere name inspired in the monarch.  He pushed this hatred so
+far that, having one day noticed from the heights of his balcony a superb
+new equipage, of which the body was painted with orange-coloured varnish,
+he sent and asked the name of the owner; and, on their reporting to him
+that this coach belonged to a provincial intendant, a relative of the
+Chancellor, his Majesty said, the same evening, to the magistrate-
+minister: "Your relative ought to show more discretion in the choice of
+the colours he displays."
+
+This coach appeared no more, and the silk and cloth mercers had their
+stuffs redyed.
+
+Another day, at the high table, the King, seeing four bowls of big
+oranges brought in, said aloud before the public: "Take away that fruit,
+which has nothing in its favour but its look.  There is nothing more
+dangerous or unhealthy."
+
+On the morrow these words spread through the capital, and the courtiers
+dared eat oranges only privately and in secret.
+
+As for me, with my love for the scent of orange blossoms, the monarch's
+petulance once more affected me extremely.  I was obliged for some time
+to give it up, like the others, and take to amber, the favourite scent of
+my master, which my nerves could not endure.
+
+Before surrendering the town of Orange to the commissioners of the
+kinglet of the Dutch, the King of France had the walls thrown down, all
+the fortifications razed, and the public buildings, certain convents, and
+the library of the town stripped of their works of art.  These measures
+irritated Prince William, who, on that account alone, wished to
+recommence the war; but the Emperor and the allies heard his complaints
+with little attention.  They even besought him to leave things as they
+were.  M. d'Orange is a real firebrand; he could not endure the
+severities of the King without reprisals, and no sooner was he once more
+in possession of his little isolated sovereignty than he annoyed the
+Catholics in it, caused all possible alarms to the sisters of mercy and
+nuns, imposed enormous taxes on the monks, and drove out the Jesuits with
+unheard-of insults.
+
+The King received hospitably all these humiliated or persecuted folk;
+and as he was given to understand that the Orange Protestants were
+secretly sowing discontent amongst his Calvinists and French Lutherans,
+he prepared the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the famous political
+measure the abrogation of which took place a short time afterwards.
+
+I saw, in the hands of the King, a document of sixty pages, printed at
+Orange, after its restitution, in which it was clearly specified that
+Hugh Capet had set himself on the throne irregularly, and in which the
+author went to the point of saying that the Catholic religion was only an
+idolatry, and that the peoples would only be happy and free after the
+general introduction of the Reformation.  The Marechal de Vivonne came
+and told me, in strict confidence, that the Jesuits, out of resentment,
+had forged this document, and printed the pamphlet themselves; but M. de
+Louvois, who, through his father, the Chancellor, and his brother, the
+Archbishop of Rheims, was associated with them, maintained that the
+incendiary libel was really the work of the Protestants.
+
+My residence at the Court having opened my eyes sufficiently to the
+wickedness of men, I will not give my opinion, amid these angry charges
+and recriminations.  I confine myself to relating what I have seen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+Sickness.--Death of the Queen.--Her Last Words.--The King's Affliction.--
+His Saying.--Second Anonymous Letter.--Conversation with La Dauphine.--
+Madame de Maintenon Intervenes.
+
+While the Turks and the Imperialists were fighting in the plains of
+Hungary, the King, followed by all his Court, had made his way towards
+the frontiers of Alsace.  He reviewed countless battalions, he made
+promotions, and gave brilliant repasts and fetes.
+
+The season was a little trying, and the Queen, though born in Spain, did
+not accommodate herself to the June heat.  As soon as business permitted
+they took the road to the capital, and returned to Versailles with some
+speed.
+
+Scarcely had they arrived, when the Queen fell ill; it did not deserve
+the name of sickness.  It was only an indisposition, pure and simple,--
+an abscess in the armpit; that was all.  Fagon, the boldest and most
+audacious of all who ever exercised the art of AEsculapius, decided that,
+to lessen the running, it was necessary to draw the blood to another
+quarter.  In spite of the opinion of his colleagues, he ordered her to be
+bled, and all her blood rushed to her heart.  In a short time the
+princess grew worse in an alarming fashion, and in a few moments we heard
+that she was in her death-agony; in a few moments more we heard of her
+death.
+
+The King wept bitterly at first, as we had seen him weep for Marie de
+Mancini, Louise de la Valliere, Henrietta of England, and the Duchesse de
+Fontanges,--dead of his excesses.  He set out at once for the Chateau of
+Saint Cloud, which belonged to his brother; and Monsieur, wishing to
+leave the field clear for him, went away to the Palais Royal with his
+disagreeable wife and their numerous children.
+
+His Majesty returned two days afterwards to the Chateau of Versailles,
+where he, his son, and all the family sprinkled holy water over the
+deceased; and this little ceremony being finished, they regained in
+silence the Chateau of Saint Cloud.
+
+The aspect of that gloomy Salon of Peace, converted into a catafalque;
+the sight of that small bier, on which a beautiful, good, and indulgent
+wife was reposing; those silent images, so full of speech, awoke the just
+remorse of the King.  His tears began once more to flow abundantly, and
+he was heard to say these words:
+
+     "Dear, kind friend, this is the first grief you have caused me in
+     twenty years!"
+
+The Infanta, as I have already related, had granted in these latter days
+her entire confidence and affection to her daughter-in-law's lady in
+waiting.  Finding herself sick and in danger, she summoned Madame de
+Maintenon; and understanding soon that those famous Court physicians did
+not know how ill she was, and that she was drawing near her last hour,
+she begged this woman, so ready in all things, to leave her no more, and
+to be good enough to prepare her for death.
+
+The Marquise wept bitterly, and perhaps even sincerely; for being unable
+to foresee, at that period, all that was to befall her in the issue, she
+probably entertained the hope of attaching herself for good to this
+excellent princess.  In losing her, she foresaw, or feared, if not
+adversity, at least a decline.
+
+The King was courting her, it is true, and favouring her already with
+marked respect; but Francoise d'Aubigne,--thoughtful and meditative as I
+knew her to be, could certainly not have failed to appreciate the
+voluptuous and inconstant character of the monarch.  She had seen several
+notorious friendships collapse in succession; and it is not at the age of
+forty-six or forty-seven that one can build castles in Spain to dwell in
+with young love.
+
+The Queen, before the beginning of her death agony, herself drew a
+splendid ring from her finger, and would pass it over the finger of the
+Marquise, to whom, some months before, she had already given her
+portrait.  It was asserted that her last words were these: "Adieu, my
+dearest Marquise; to you I recommend and confide the King."
+
+In accordance with a recommendation so binding and so precise, Madame de
+Maintenon followed the monarch to Saint Cloud; and as great afflictions
+are fain to be understood and shared, these two desolate hearts shut
+themselves up in one room, in order to groan in concert.
+
+The Queen having been taken to Saint Denis, the King, Madame de
+Maintenon, and the Court returned to Versailles, where the royal family
+went into mourning for the period prescribed by law and custom.
+
+The Queen's large and small apartments, so handsome, new, splendid, and
+magnificent, became the habitation of Madame la Dauphine; so that the
+lady in waiting, in virtue of her office, returned in the most natural
+manner to those apartments where she had held authority.
+
+The Queen, without having the genius of conversation and discussion,
+lacked neither aplomb nor a taste for the proprieties; she knew how to
+support, or, at least, to preside over a circle.  The young Dauphine had
+neither the desire, nor the patience, nor, the tact.
+
+The prince charged the lady in waiting to do these things for her.  We
+repaired in full dress to the Princess,--to present our homages to Madame
+de Maintenon.  One must admit she threw her heart into it; that is to
+say, she drew out, as far as possible, the monarch's daughter-in-law,
+inspiring into her every moment amiable questions or answers, which she
+had taken pains to embellish and adorn in her best manner.
+
+The King arrived; I then had the pleasure of seeing him, not two paces
+from me, before my very eyes, saying witty and agreeable things to the
+Marquise; while he talked to me only of the rain and the weather, always
+cursorily.
+
+It was then that I received a second anonymous letter, in the same
+handwriting, the same style, the same tone as that of which mention has
+been made.  I transcribe it; it is curious.
+
+TO MADAME LA MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN.
+
+     MADAME:--You have not followed my former advice.  The opportunity
+     has gone by; it is too late.  Your superintendence is left with you,
+     and there are four or five hundred thousand livres lying idle; for
+     you will not be able to sell the superintendence of a household, and
+     of a council, which are in a tomb at Saint Denis!  Happily you are
+     rich, and what would be a disaster to another fortune is scarcely
+     more than a slight disappointment to you.  I take the respectful
+     liberty of talking once more with the prettiest and wittiest woman
+     of her century, in order to submit to her certain ideas, and to
+     offer her a fresh piece of advice, which I believe important.
+
+     The Queen, moved by a generosity seldom found in her peers, pardoned
+     you to some degree your theft of her spouse; she pardoned you in
+     order to be agreeable to him, and to prove to him that, being his
+     most sincere friend, she could not bring herself to contest his
+     affections and his pastimes.  But this sublime philosophy is at an
+     end; the excellent heart of this Queen is at Val-de-Grace; it will
+     beat no more, neither for her volatile husband, nor for any one
+     whatsoever.
+
+     Madame la Dauphine, brought up in German severity, and hardly
+     accustomed to the atmosphere of her new country, neither likes nor
+     respects you, nor has any indulgence for you.  She barely suffers
+     the presence of your children, although brothers of her husband.
+     How should she tolerate yours?  It appears, it is plain, Madame la
+     Marquise, that your name has found no place or footing on her list,
+     and that she would rather not meet you often in her salons.  If one
+     may even speak to you confidentially, she has thus expressed
+     herself; it would be cruel for you to hear of it from any other
+     being but me.
+
+     Believe me, believe a man as noted for his good qualities as for his
+     weaknesses.  He will never drive you away, for you are the mother of
+     his beloved children, and he has loved you himself tenderly.
+     However, his coldness is going to increase.  Will you be
+     sufficiently light-hearted, or sufficiently imprudent, to await
+     on a counterscarp the rigours of December and January?
+
+     Keep your wit always, Madame la Marquise, and with this wit, which
+     is such a charming resource, do not divest yourself of your noble
+     pride.
+
+     I am, always, your respectful and devoted servant,
+
+                                   THE UNKNOWN OF THE CHATEAU.
+
+
+At the time of the first letter, when I had hesitated some time, doubtful
+between Madame de Maintenon and the King, it occurred to me to suspect
+the Queen for a moment; but there was no possibility now of imputing to
+this princess, dead and gone, the unbecoming annoyance that an unknown
+permitted himself to cause me.
+
+On this occasion I chose my part resolutely; and, not wishing to busy
+myself any longer with these pretended friendly counsels which my pride
+forbade me to follow, I took these two insolent letters and burned them.
+This last letter, after all, spoke very truly.  I remarked distinctly,
+in the looks and manner of the Dauphine, that ridiculous and clumsy
+animosity which she had taken a fancy to lavish on me.
+
+As she was not, in my eyes, so sublime a personage that a lady of quality
+might not enter into conversation with her, I approached her armchair
+with the intention of upsetting her haughtiness and pride by compelling
+her to speak to me before everybody.
+
+I complimented her on her coiffure, and even thanked her for the honour
+she did me in imitating me; she reddened, and I entreated her not to put
+herself about, assuring her that her face looked much better in its
+habitual pallor.  These words redoubled her dissatisfaction, and her
+redness then became a veritable scarlet flame.
+
+Passing forthwith to another subject, I pronounced in a few words a
+panegyric on the late Queen; to which I skilfully added that, from the
+first day, she had been able to understand the French graces and assume
+them with intelligence and taste.
+
+"Her Spanish accent troubled her for a year or two longer," added I;
+"strictly speaking, this accent, derived from the Italian, has nothing
+disagreeable in it; while the English, Polish, Russian, and German accent
+is inharmonious in itself, and is lost with great difficulty here."
+
+Seeing that my reflections irritated her, I stopped short, and made my
+excuses by saying to her, "Madame, these are only general reflections.
+Your Highness is an exception, and has struck us all, as you have nothing
+German left but memories, and, perhaps, regrets."
+
+She answered me, stammering, that she had not been destined in the first
+place for the throne of France, and that this want of forethought had
+injured her education; then, feeling a spark of courage in her heart, she
+said that the late Queen had more than once confided to her that the
+Court of France was disorderly in its fashions, because it was never the
+princesses who gave it its tone as elsewhere.
+
+Madame de Maintenon perceived quickly the consequences of this saying;
+for the peace of the Princess, she retorted quickly: "In France, the
+princesses are so kind and obliging as to follow the fashions; but the
+good examples and good tone come to us from our princes, and our only
+merit is to imitate them with ingenuity."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+Judgment Given by the Chatelet.--The Marquis d'Antin Restored to His
+Father.--The Judgment is Not Executed.--Full Mourning.--Funeral Service.
+--The Notary of Saint Elig.--The Lettre de Cachet.
+
+The Marquis d'Antin, my son, with the consent of the King, had remained
+under my control, and had never consented to quit me to rejoin his
+father.  M. de Montespan, at the time of the suit for judicial separation
+before the Chatelet, had caused his advocate to maintain this barbarous
+argument, that a son, though brought into the world by his mother, ought
+to side against her if domestic storms arise, and prefer to everybody and
+everything the man whose arms and name he bears.
+
+The tribunal of the Chatelet, trampling upon maternal tenderness and
+humanity, granted his claim in full; and I was advised not to appeal,
+now that I had obtained the thing essential to me, a separation in body
+and estate.
+
+M. de Montespan dared not come himself to Paris in order to execute the
+sentence; he sent for that purpose two officers of artillery, his friends
+or relatives, who were authorised to see the young Marquis at his
+college, but not to withdraw him before the close of his humanities and
+classes.  These gentlemen, having sent word to the father that the young
+D'Antin was my living image, he replied to them, that they were to insist
+no longer, to abandon their mission, and to abandon a child who would
+never enjoy his favour since he resembled myself.  Owing to this happy
+circumstance I was able to preserve my son.
+
+Since these unhappy disputes, and the suit which made so much noise, I
+had heard no more talk of M. de Montespan in society.  I only learned
+from travellers that he was building, a short distance from the Pyrenees,
+a chateau of a noble and royal appearance, where he had gathered together
+all that art, joined with good taste, could add to nature; that this
+chateau of Saint Elix, adorned with the finest orange grove in the world,
+was ascribed to the liberality of the King.  The Marquis, hurt by this
+mistake of his neighbours, which he called an accusation, published a
+solemn justification in these ingenuous provinces, and he proved, as a
+clerk might do to his master, that this enormous expenditure was
+exclusively his own.
+
+Suddenly the report of his death spread through the capital, and the
+Marquis d'Antin received without delay an official letter with a great,
+black seal, which announced to him this most lamentable event.  The
+notary of Saint Elix, in sending him this sad news, took the opportunity
+of enclosing a certified copy of the will.
+
+This testament, replete with malignity, having been freely published in
+the capital, I cannot refrain from reproducing it in these writings.
+
+Here are its principal clauses;
+
+     In the name of the most blessed Trinity, etc.
+
+     Since I cannot congratulate myself on a wife, who, diverting herself
+     as much as possible, has caused me to pass my youth and my life in
+     celibacy, I content myself with leaving, her my life-sized portrait,
+     by Bourdon, begging her to place it in her bedchamber, when the King
+     ceases to come there.
+
+     Although the Marquis de Pardailhan d'Antin is prodigiously like his
+     mother (a circumstance of which I have been lamentably sensible!),
+     I do not hesitate to believe him my son.  In this quality I give and
+     bequeath to him all my goods, as my eldest son, imposing on him,
+     nevertheless, the following legacies, liberalities and charges:
+
+     I leave to their Highnesses, M. le Duc du Maine, M. le Comte de
+     Toulouse, Mademoiselle de Nantes, and Mademoiselle de Blois (born
+     during my marriage with their mother, and consequently my
+     presumptive children), their right of legitimacy on the charge and
+     condition of their bearing in one of their quarterings the
+     Pardailhan-Montespan arms.
+
+     I take the respectful liberty of here thanking my King for the
+     extreme kindness which he has shown to my wife, nee De Mortemart, to
+     my son D'Antin, to his brothers and sisters, both dead and living,
+     and also to myself, who have only been dismissed, and kept in exile:
+
+     In recognition of which I give and bequeath to his Majesty my vast
+     chateau of Montespan, begging him to create and institute there a
+     community of Repentant Ladies, to wear the habit of Carmelites or of
+     the Daughters of the Conception, on the special charge and condition
+     that he place my wife at the head of the said convent, and appoint
+     her to be first Abbess.
+
+     I attach an annuity of sixty thousand livres to this noble
+     institution, hoping that this will make up the deficiency, if there
+     be any.
+
+                              DE PARDAILHAN DE GONDRAN MONTESPAN,
+                              Separated, although inseparable spouse.
+
+
+A family council being held to decide what I must do on this occasion,
+Madame de Thianges, M. de Vivonne, and M. de Blanville-Colbert decided
+that I must wear the same full mourning as my son D'Antin.  As for this
+odious will, it was agreed that it should not even be spoken of, and that
+the notary of Saint Elix should be written to at once, to place it in the
+hands of a third party, of whom he would be presently notified at the
+place.  The Marquis d'Antin at once had my equipage and his own draped.
+We hastened to put all our household into mourning from top to toe, and
+the funeral service, with full ritual, was ordered to be performed at the
+parish church.  The very same day, as the family procession was about to
+set out on its way to the church, a sort of sergeant, dressed in black,
+handed a fresh letter to the Marquis d'Antin.  It contained these words:
+
+     The notary of Saint Elix deserves a canonry in the Chapter of
+     Charenton; it is not the Marquis de Montespan who is dead; they have
+     played a trick on you.
+
+     The only truth in all of it is the will, of which the notary of
+     Saint Elix has been in too great a hurry to send a copy.  A thousand
+     excuses to M. le Marquis d'Antin and his mother, Madame la Marquise.
+
+It was necessary to send orders at once to the parish church to take away
+the catafalque and the drapings.  The priests and the musicians were paid
+as if they had done what they ought to do; and my widowhood, which, at
+another time, might have been of such importance, was, I dare to say,
+indifferent to me.
+
+The King was informed of what had just taken place in my family.  He
+spoke of it as an extremely disagreeable affair.  I answered him that it
+was far more disagreeable for me than for any one else.  His Majesty
+added:
+
+"Tell the Marquis d'Antin to go to Saint Elix and pay his respects to his
+father.  This journey will also enable him to learn if such a ridiculous
+will really exists, and if your husband has reached such a pitch of
+independence.  D'Antin will beg him, on my behalf, to tear up that
+document, and to earn my favour by doing so."
+
+My son, after consulting with his Majesty, started indeed for the
+Pyrenees.  His father at first gave him a cold welcome.  The next day
+the Marquis discovered the secret of pleasing him; and M. de Montespan,
+at this full mourning, this family council, and at the catafalque in the
+middle of the church, promised to alter the will on condition that his
+'lettre do cachet' should be revoked and quashed within the next
+fortnight.
+
+The King agreed to these demands, which did not any longer affect him.
+I was the only person sacrificed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+The Duc du Maine Provided with the Government of Languedoc.--The Young
+Prince de Conti.--His Piety.--His Apostasy.--The Duc de la Feuillade
+Burlesqued.--The Watch Set with Diamonds.--The False Robber.--Scene
+amongst the Servants.
+
+The old Duc de Verneuil, natural son of King Henri IV., died during these
+incidents, leaving the government of Languedoc vacant.  The King summoned
+M. le Duc du Maine at once, and, embracing him with his usual tenderness,
+he said to him: "My son, though you are very young, I make you governor
+of Languedoc.  This will make many jealous of you; do not worry about
+them, I am always here to defend you.  Go at once to Mademoiselle's, who
+has just arrived at Versailles, and tell her what I have done for her
+adopted child."
+
+I went to thank his Majesty for this favour, which seemed to me very
+great, since my son was not twelve years old.  The King said to me: "Here
+comes the carriage of the Prince de Conti; you may be certain that he
+comes to ask me for this place."
+
+In fact, those were the first words of the Prince de Conti.
+
+"The government for which you ask," said the King, "has been for a long
+time promised to Madame de Maintenon for her Duc du Maine.  I intend
+something else for you, my dear cousin.  Trust in me.  In giving you my
+beloved daughter I charged myself with your fortunes; you are on my list,
+and in the first rank."
+
+The young Prince changed colour.  He entreated the King to believe him
+worthy of his confidence and esteem, to which he imprudently added these
+words: "My wife was born before M. du Maine."
+
+"And you, too," replied his Majesty; "are you any the more sober for
+that?  There are some little youthful extravagances in your conduct which
+pain me.  I leave my daughter in ignorance of them, because I wish her to
+be at peace.  Endeavour to prevent her being informed of them by
+yourself.  Govern yourself as a young man of your birth ought to govern
+himself; then I will hand a government over to you with pleasure."
+
+The Prince de Conti appeared to me very much affected by this homily and
+disappointment.  He saluted me, however, with a smile of benevolence and
+the greatest amenity.  We learnt a short time afterwards that his wife
+had shed many tears, and was somewhat set against my children and myself.
+
+This amiable Princess then was not aware that the government of Languedoc
+was not granted at my instance, but at the simple desire of Madame de
+Maintenon; the King had sufficiently explained it.
+
+Just at this moment M. le Prince de Conti had made himself notable by his
+attachment or his deference towards matters of religion and piety.  His
+superb chariot and his peach-coloured liveries were to be seen, on fete-
+days, at the doors of the great churches.  He suddenly changed his
+manoeuvres, and refused to subject himself to restraints which led him no
+whither.  He scoffed publicly at the Jesuits, the Sulpicians, and their
+formal lectures and confraternities; he refused to distribute the blessed
+bread at his parish church, and heard mass only from his chaplains and in
+his palace.
+
+This ill-advised behaviour did not improve his position.  Madame, his
+wife, continued to come to Versailles on gala-days, or days of reunion,
+but he and his brother appeared there less and less frequently.  They
+were exceedingly handsome, both of them; not through their father, whose
+huge nose had rendered him ridiculous, but through the Princess, their
+mother, Anna or Felicia de Martinozzi, niece of Cardinal Mazarin.  God
+had surpassed himself in creating that graceful head, and those eyes will
+never have their match in sweetness and beauty.
+
+Free now to follow his own tastes, which only policy had induced him to
+dissimulate and constrain, M. de Conti allowed himself all that a young
+prince, rich and pleasure-loving, could possibly wish in this world.
+In the midst of these reunions, consecrated to pleasure, and even to
+debauchery, he loved to signalise his lordly liberality; nothing could
+stop him, nothing was too extravagant for him.  His passion was to remove
+all obstacles and pay for everybody.
+
+His joyous companions cried out with admiration, and celebrated, in prose
+and verse, so noble a taste and virtues so rare.  The young orphan
+inhaled this incense with delight; he contracted enormous debts, and soon
+did not know where to turn to pay them.
+
+The King, well informed of these excesses, commanded M. le Duc de la
+Feuillade to have the young man followed, and inform himself of all he
+did.
+
+One day, when M. de la Feuillade himself had followed him too closely,
+and forced him, for the space of an hour, to scour over all Le Marais in
+useless and fatiguing zigzags, M. de Conti, who recognised him perfectly,
+in spite of his disguise, pretended that his watch, set with diamonds,
+had been stolen.  He pointed out this man as the thief to his ready
+servingmen, who fell upon M. de la Feuillade, and, stripping him to find
+the watch, gave the Prince time to escape and reach his place of
+rendezvous.
+
+The captain was ill for several days, and even in danger, in consequence
+of this adventure, which did not improve the credit of M. le Prince de
+Conti, much as it needed improvement.
+
+His young and beautiful wife excused him in everything, ignoring, and
+wishing to ignore, the extent of his guilt and frivolity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+A Funeral and Diversions.--Sinister Dream.--Funeral Orations of the
+Queen.
+
+It remains for me to relate certain rather curious circumstances in
+relation to the late Queen, after which I shall speak of her no more in
+these Memoirs.
+
+She was left for ten days, lying in state, in the mortuary chapel of
+Versailles, where mass was being said by priests at four altars from
+morning till evening.  She was finally removed from this magnificent
+Palace of Enchantment to Saint Denis.  Numerous carriages followed the
+funeral car, and in all these carriages were the high officials, as well
+as the ladies, who had belonged to her.  But what barbarity! what
+ingratitude! what a scandal!  In all these mournful carriages, people
+talked and laughed and made themselves agreeable; and the body-guards,
+as well as the gendarmes and musketeers, took turns to ride their horses
+into the open plain and shoot at the birds.
+
+Monsieur le Dauphin, after Saint Denis, went to lie at the Tuileries,
+before betaking himself to the service on the following day at Notre
+Dame.  In the evening, instead of remaining alone and in seclusion in his
+apartment, as a good son ought to have done, he went to the Palais Royal
+to see the Princess Palatine and her husband, whom he had had with him
+all the day; he must have distraction, amusement, and even merry
+conversations, such as simple bourgeois would not permit themselves on so
+solemn an occasion, were it only out of decorum.
+
+In the midst of these ridiculous and indefensible conversations, the news
+arrived that the King had broken his arm.  The Marquis de Mosny had
+started on the instant in order to inform the young Prince of it; and Du
+Saussoi, equerry of his Majesty, arrived half an hour later, giving the
+same news with the details.
+
+The King (who was hunting during the obsequies of his wife) had fallen
+off his horse, which he had not been able to prevent from stumbling into
+a ditch full of tall grass and foliage.  M. Felix, a skilful and prudent
+surgeon, had just set the arm, which was only put out of joint.  The King
+sent word to the Dauphin not to leave the Tuileries, and to attend the
+funeral ceremony on the morrow.
+
+The fair of Saint Laurence was being held at this moment, although the
+city of Paris had manifested an intention of postponing it.  They were
+exhibiting to the curious a little wise horse which bowed, calculated,
+guessed, answered questions, and performed marvels.  The King had
+strictly forbidden his family and the people of the Court to let
+themselves be seen at this fair.  Monsieur le Dauphin, none the less,
+wished to contemplate, with his own eyes, this extraordinary and
+wonderful little horse.  Consequently, he had to be taken to the Chateau
+des Tuileries, where he took a puerile amusement in a spectacle in itself
+trivial, and, at such a time, scandalous.
+
+The poor Queen would have died of grief if the death of her son had
+preceded hers, against the order of nature; but the hearts of our
+children are not disposed like ours, and who knows how I shall be treated
+myself by mine when I am gone?
+
+With regard to the King's arm, Madame d'Orleans, during the service for
+the Queen, was pleased to relate to the Grande Mademoiselle that, three
+or four days before, she had seen, in a somewhat troublesome and painful
+dream, the King's horse run away, and throw him upon the rocks and
+brambles of a precipice, from which he was rescued with a broken arm.
+A lady observed that dreams are but vague and uncertain indications.
+
+"Not mine," replied Madame, with ardour; "they are not like others.
+Five or six days before the Queen fell ill, I told her, in the presence
+of Madame la Dauphine, that I had a most alarming dream.  I had dreamt
+that I was in a large church all draped in black.  I advanced to the
+sanctuary; a vault was opened at one side of the altar.  Some kind of
+priests went down, and these folk said aloud, as they came up again, that
+they had found no place at first; that the cavity having seemed to them
+too long and deep, they had arranged the biers, and had placed there the
+body of the lady.  At that point I awoke, quite startled, and not
+myself."
+
+Hardly had the Princess finished her story, when the Infanta, turning
+pale, said to her: "Madame, you will see, the dream of the vault refers
+to me.  At the funeral of the Queen of England I noticed, and remember,
+that the same difficulty occurred at Saint Denis; they were obliged to
+push up all the coffins, one against the other."
+
+And, in truth, we knew, a few days afterwards, that for this poor Queen,
+Maria Theresa, the monks of the abbey had found it necessary to break
+down a strong barrier of stones in their subterranean church, to remove
+the first wife of Gaston, mother of Mademoiselle, and find a place for
+the Spanish Queen who had arrived in those regions.
+
+There were several funeral orations on this occasion.  Not a single one
+of these official discourses deserved to survive the Queen.  There was
+very little to say about her, I admit; but these professional
+panegyrists, these liars in surplice, in black cassock, or in purple and
+mitre, are not too scrupulous to borrow facts and material in cases where
+the dead person has neglected to furnish or bequeath it them.
+
+In my own case I congratulated myself on this sort of indifference or
+literary penury; an indiscreet person, sustained by zeal or talent, might
+have wished to mortify me in a romance combined of satire and religion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+Jean Baptiste Colbert.--His Death.--His Great Works.--His Last Advice to
+the Marquise.
+
+M. Colbert had been ailing for a long time past.  His face bore visible
+testimony against his health, to which his accumulated and incessant
+labour had caused the greatest injury.  We had just married his son
+Blainville to my niece, Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente, heiress of the
+house of Rochchouart.  Since this union--the King's work--M. Colbert had
+somewhat tended in my favour, and I had reason to count on his good
+offices and kindness.  I said to him one day that my quarrel with him was
+that he did not look after himself, that he ignored all his own worth,
+treated himself with no more respect than a mere clerk; that he was the
+indispensable man, the right hand of the King, his eye of vigilance in
+everything, and the pillar of his business and his finance.
+
+Without being precisely what one would call a modest man, M. Colbert was
+calm of mind, and by nature without pose or presumption.  He cared
+sincerely for the King's glory.  He held his tongue on the subject of
+great enterprises, but employed much zeal and ability in promoting the
+success of good projects and ideas, such as, for instance, our Indies and
+Pondicherry.
+
+He had known how to procure, without oppressing any one, the incalculable
+sums that had been necessitated, not only by enormous and almost
+universal wars, but by all those canals, all those ports in the
+Mediterranean or the ocean, that vast creation of vessels, arsenals,
+foundries, military houses and hospitals which we had seen springing up
+in all parts.  He had procured by his application, his careful
+calculations, the wherewithal to build innumerable fortresses, aqueducts,
+fountains, bridges, the Observatory of Paris, the Royal Hospital of the
+Invalides, the chateaus of the Tuileries and of Vincennes, the engine and
+chateau of Marly, that prodigious chateau of Versailles, with its Trianon
+of marble, which by itself might have served as a habitation for the
+richest monarchs of the Orient.
+
+He had founded the wonderful glass factories, and those of the Gobelins;
+he had raised, as though by a magic ring, the Royal Library over the
+gardens and galleries of Mazarin; and foreigners asked one another, in
+their surprise, what they must admire most in that monument, the interior
+pomp of the edifice or its rich collection of books, coins, and
+manuscripts.
+
+To all these works, more than sufficient to immortalise twenty ministers,
+M. Colbert was adding at this moment the huge 'salpetriere' of Paris and
+the colonnades of the Louvre.  Ruthless death came to seize him in the
+midst of these occupations, so noble, useful, and glorious.
+
+The great Colbert, worn out with fatigue, watching, and constraint, left
+the King, his wife, his children, his honours, his well-earned riches,
+and displayed no other anxiety than alarm as to his salvation,--as though
+so many services rendered to the nation and to his prince were no more,
+in his eyes, than vain works in relation to eternity.
+
+Madame de Maintenon, having become a great lady, could, not reasonably
+continue her office of governess to the King's children.  M. Colbert,
+that man of vigour, that Mount Atlas, capable of supporting all things
+without a plaint, had been charged with the care of the two new-born
+princes.
+
+Because of the third Mademoiselle de Blois, and of the little Comte de
+Toulouse, I saw the minister frequently, and I was one of the first to
+remark the change in his face and his health.
+
+During his last illness, I visited him more often.  One day, of his own
+accord, he said to me:
+
+"How do you get on with Madame de Maintenon?  I have never heard her
+complain of you; but I make you this confidence out of friendship.  His
+Majesty complains of your attitude towards your former friend.  If the
+frankness of your nature and the impatience of your humour have sometimes
+led you too far, I exhort you to moderate yourself, in your own interest
+and in that of your children.  Madame de Maintenon is an amiable and
+witty person, whose society pleases the King.  Have this consideration
+for a hard-working prince, whom intellectual recreation relaxes and
+diverts, and make a third at those pleasant gatherings where you shone
+long before this lady, and where you would never be her inferior.  Go
+there, and frequently, instead of keeping at a distance in an attitude of
+resentment, which, do not doubt, is noticed and viewed unfavourably."
+
+"But, monsieur," I answered M. Colbert, "you are not, then, aware that
+every time I am a third person at one of these interminable
+conversations, I always meet with some mark of disapproval,
+and sometimes with painful mortifications?"
+
+"I have been told so," the sick man replied; "but I have also been told
+that you imprudently call down on yourself these outbursts of the King.
+What need have you to quarrel with Madame de Maintenon over a look, a
+word, a movement or a gesture?  You seem to me persuaded that love enters
+into the King's friendship for the Marquise.  Well, suppose you have
+guessed aright his Majesty's sentiments; will your dissatisfaction and
+your sarcasms prevent those sentiments from existing, and the prince from
+indulging them?
+
+"You know, madame, that he generally gets everything he wants, and M. de
+Montespan experienced that when he wished to set himself against your
+joint wills.
+
+"I am nearer my end and my release than my doctors think.  In leaving
+this whirlpool of disappointments, ambitions, errors, and mutual
+injustice, I should like to see you free, at peace, reconciled to your
+real interests, and out of reach, forever, of the vicissitudes of
+fortune.  In my eyes, your position is that of a ship-owner whom the
+ocean has constantly favoured, and who has reaped great riches.  With
+moderation and prudence, it depended on himself to profit by his
+astonishing success, and at last to enjoy his life; but ambition and vain
+desire drive him afresh upon this sea, so fruitful in shipwrecks, and his
+last venture destroys all his prosperity and all his many labours.
+
+"Our excellent Queen has gone to rest from her troubles and her journeys;
+and I, madame, am going to rest not long after her, having worn out my
+strength on great things that are as nothing."
+
+The Marquis de Seignelay, eldest son of this minister, counted on
+succeeding to the principal offices of his father.  He made a mistake.
+The place of secretary of state and controller-general passed to the
+President Pelletier, who had been chosen by M. Colbert himself; and the
+superintendence of buildings, gardens, and works went to swell the
+numerous functions of the Marquis de Louvois, who wished for and counted
+on it.
+
+MM. de Blainville and Seignelay had good posts, proportioned to their
+capacity; the King never ceased to look upon them as the children of his
+dear M. Colbert.
+
+     [It mast be remembered that the young Marquis de Seignelay was
+     already Minister of Marine, an office which remained with him.--Ed.]
+
+Before his death, this minister saw his three daughters become duchesses.
+The King, who had been pleased to make these marriages, had given each of
+them a dowry of a million in cash.
+
+As for the Abbe Colbert, already promoted to the Bishopric of Montpellier
+(to which three important abbeys were joined), he had the Archbishopric
+of Toulouse, with an immense revenue.  It is true that he took a pleasure
+in rebuilding his archiepiscopal palace and cathedral out of a huge and
+ancient treasure, which he discovered whilst pulling down some old ruin
+to make a salon.
+
+One might say that there was some force of attraction attached to this
+family and name of Colbert.  Treasures arose from the earth to give
+themselves up and obey them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+Mesdemoiselles de Mazarin.--The Age of Puberty.--Madame de Beauvais.--
+Anger of the Queen-mother.--The Cardinal's Policy.--First Love.--Louis de
+Beauvais.--The Abbe de Rohan-Soubise.--The Emerald's Lying-in.--The
+Handsome Musketeer.--The Counterfeit of the King.
+
+At the time when the King, still very young, was submitting without
+impatience to the authority of the Queen, his mother, and his godfather,
+the Cardinal, his strength underwent a sudden development, and this lad
+became, all at once, a man.  The numerous nieces of Cardinal Mazarin, who
+were particularly dear to the Queen, were as much at the Louvre as at
+their own home.  Anne of Austria, naturally affable, gladly released them
+from the etiquette which was imposed upon every one else.  These young
+ladies played and laughed, sang or frolicked, after the manner of their
+years, and the young King lived frankly and gaily in their midst, as one
+lives with agreeable sisters, when one is happy enough to have such.  He
+lived fraternally with these pretty Italian girls, but his intimacy
+stopped there, since the Cardinal and the governess watched night and day
+over a young man who was greatly subject to surveillance.
+
+At the same time, there was amongst the Queen's women a rather pretty
+waiting-maid, well brought up, who was called Madame de Beauvais.  Those
+brunettes, with black eyes, bright complexions, and graceful plumpness,
+are almost always wanton and alluring.  Madame de Beauvais noticed the
+sudden development of the monarch, his impassioned reveries which
+betrayed themselves in his gaze.  She thought she had detected intentions
+on his part, and an imperious need of explaining himself.  A word, which
+was said to her in passing, authorised her, or seemed to authorise her,
+to make an almost intelligible reply.  The young wooer showed himself
+less undecided, less enigmatic,--and the understanding was completed.
+
+Madame de Beauvais was the recipient of the prince's first emotions, and
+the clandestine connection lasted for three months.  Anne of Austria,
+informed of what was passing, wished at first to punish her first maid in
+waiting; but the Cardinal, more circumspect, represented to her that this
+connection, of which no one knew, was an occupation, not to say a
+safeguard, for the young King, whose fine constitution and health
+naturally drew him to the things of life.  "Although eighteen years of
+age," he added, "the prince abandons the whole authority to you; whereas
+another, in his place, would ardently dispute it.  Do not let us quarrel
+with him about trifles; leave him his Beauvais lady, so that he may make
+no attempt on my pretty nieces nor on your authority, madame, nor on my
+important occupations, which are for the good of the State."
+
+Anne of Austria, who was more a Christian and a mother than a diplomatic
+woman, found it very painful to appreciate these arguments of the
+Cardinal; but after some reflection she recognised their importance, and
+things remained as they were.
+
+Madame de Beauvais had a son, whom the husband (whether overconfident or
+not) saw brought into the world with much delight, and whom, with a
+wealth of royalist respect, they baptised under the agreeable name of
+Louis.  This child, who had a fine figure and constitution, received a
+particularly careful education.  He has something of the King about him,
+principally in his glance and smile.  He presents, however, only the
+intellectual habit of his mother, and even a notable absence of grandeur
+and elevation.  He is a very pretty waiting-woman, dressed out as a
+cavalier; in a word, he is that pliant and indefatigable courtier, whom
+we see everywhere, and whom town and Court greet by the name of Baron de
+Beauvais.
+
+His sister is the Duchesse de Richelieu, true daughter of her father, as
+ugly, or rather as lacking in charm, as he is; but replete with subtilty
+and intelligence,--with that intelligence which perpetually suggests a
+humble origin, and which wearies or importunes, because of its ill-
+nature.  At the age of seventeen, her freshness made her pass for being
+pretty.  She accused the young Duc de Richelieu of having seduced her,
+and made her a mother; and he, in his fear of her indignation and
+intrigues, and of the reproaches of the Queen, hastened to confess his
+fault, and to repair everything by marrying her.
+
+Baron Louis, her brother, to whom the King could hardly refuse anything,
+made her a lady of honour to the Dauphine.  Madame de Richelieu delighted
+to spread a report in the world that I had procured her this office; she
+was deceived, and wished to be deceived.  I had asked this eminent
+position for the Marquise de Thianges, in whom I was interested very
+differently.  His Majesty decided that a marquise was inferior to a
+duchess, even when that duchess was born a De Beauvais.  Another son of
+the monarch, well known at the Court as such, is M. l'Abbe de Rohan-
+Soubise, to whom the cardinal's hat is already promised.  His figure, his
+carriage, his head, his attitude, his whole person infallibly reveal him;
+and the Prince de Soubise has so thoroughly recognised and understood the
+deceit, that he honours the young churchman with all his indifference and
+his respect.  He acts with him as a sort of guardian; and that is the
+limitation of his role.
+
+The Princesse de Soubise, who had resolved to advance her careless
+husband, either to the government of Brittany or to some ministry,
+persuaded herself that it is only by women that men can be advanced;
+and that in order to advance a husband, it is necessary to advance
+oneself.  Although a little thin, and lacking that of which the King is
+so fond, we saw in her a very pretty woman.  She knew how to persuade his
+Majesty that she cherished for him the tenderest love.  That is,
+I believe, the one trap that it is possible to set for him.  He is
+credulous on that head; he was speedily caught.  And every time that M.
+de Rohan was away, and there was freedom at the Hotel Soubise, the
+Princess came in person to Saint Germain or to Versailles, to show her
+necklace and pendant of emeralds to the King.  Such was the agreed
+signal.
+
+The Abbe de Rohan was born of these emeralds.  The King displays
+conscience in all his actions, except in his wars and conquests.  When
+the little Soubise was grown up, his Majesty signified to the mother that
+this young man must enter the Church, not wishing to suffer the formation
+of a parasitical branch amongst the Rohans, which would have
+participated, without any right, in the legitimate sap.  It is asserted
+that the Abbe de Rohan only submitted with infinite regret to a sentence
+which neutralised him.  The King has promised him all possible
+consideration; he has even embraced him tenderly, an action which is
+almost equivalent to a "declaration of degree" made to the Parliament.
+
+The other child alleged to the King is that handsome musketeer, who is so
+like him.  But, judging from the King's character, which respects, and in
+some fashion almost admires itself, in everything which proceeds from it,
+I do not venture to believe in this musketeer.  The King wished one day
+to see him close by, and even accosted him by the orange-shrubbery; but
+this movement seemed to me one of pure curiosity.
+
+The resemblance, I must confess, is the most striking that I have yet
+seen; for it is complete, even to the tone of the voice.  But a look
+might have operated this miracle.  Instance the little negress, the
+daughter of the poor Queen, that Queen so timid and entirely natural,
+who, to her happiness, as much as to her glory, has never looked at,
+approached, or distinguished any one except the King.
+
+For the rest, we shall see and know well if the King does anything for
+his musketeer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+The Young Nobility and the Turks.--Private Correspondence.--The Unlucky
+Minister and the Page of Strasburg.--The King Judged and Described in All
+the Documents.--The King Humiliated in His Affections.--Scandal at Court.
+--Grief of Fathers at Having Given Life to Such Children.--Why Prince
+Eugene Was Not a Bishop.--Why He Was Not a Colonel of France.--Death of
+the Prince de Conti.
+
+As France was at peace at the moment when the three hundred thousand
+Turks swarmed over Hungary and threatened Vienna, our young princes, and
+a fairly large number of nobles of about the same age, took it into their
+heads to go and exhibit their bravery in Germany; they asked permission
+of M. de Louvois to join the Imperialists.  This permission was granted
+to some amongst them, but refused to others.  Those whom it was thought
+fit to restrain took no notice of the words of the minister, and departed
+as resolutely as though the King had fallen asleep.  They were arrested
+on the road; but his Majesty, having reflected on the matter, saw that
+these special prohibitions would do harm to the intentions which he had
+with regard to his deference for Germany, and they were all allowed to go
+their own way.
+
+A little later, it was discovered that there was a regular and active
+correspondence between these young people in Germany and others who had
+remained in Paris or at the Court.  The first minister had a certain
+page, one of the most agile, pursued; he was caught up with at Strasburg;
+his valise was seized.  The Marquis de Louvois, desiring to give the King
+the pleasure of himself opening these mysterious letters, handed him the
+budget, the seals intact, and his Majesty thanked him for this attention.
+These thanks were the last that that powerful minister was destined to
+receive from his master; his star waned from that hour, never again to
+recover its lustre; all his credit failed and crashed to the ground.
+This correspondence--spied on with so much zeal, surprised and carried
+off with such good fortune--informed the astonished monarch that, in the
+Louvois family, in his house and circle, his royal character, his
+manners, his affections, his tastes, his person, his whole life, were
+derisively censured.  The beloved son-in-law of the minister, speaking
+with an open heart to his friends, who were travelling, and absent,
+represented the King to them as a sort of country-gentleman, given up now
+to the domestic and uniform life of the manor-house, more than ever
+devoted to his dame bourgeoise, and making love ecstatically at the feet
+of this young nymph of fifty seasons.
+
+M. de la Roche-Guyon and M. de Liancourt, sons of La Rochefoucauld, who
+expressed themselves with the same boldness, went so far as to say of
+their ruler that he was but a stage and tinsel king.  The son-in-law of
+Louvois accused him of being most courageous in his gallery, but of
+turning pale on the eve, and at the moment, of an action; and
+D'Alincourt, son of Villeroi, carried his outrages further still.
+No one knows better than myself how unjust these accusations were,
+and are.  I was sensible of the mortification such a reading must have
+caused to the most sensitive, the most irritable of princes; but I
+rejoiced at the humiliation that the lady in waiting felt for her share
+in this unpardonable correspondence.  The annoyance that I read for some
+days on her handsome face consoled me, for the time being, for her great
+success at my expense.
+
+Madame la Princesse de Conti, whom the King, up to this time, had not
+only cherished but adored, found also, in those documents, the term of
+excessive favour.  A letter from her to her husband said: "I have just
+given myself a maid of honour, wishing to spare Madame de Maintenon the
+trouble, or the pleasure, of giving me one herself."
+
+She was summoned to Versailles, as she may very well have expected.  The
+King, paying no attention to her tears, said to her: "I believed in your
+affection; I have done everything to deserve it; it is lamentable to me
+to be unable to count on it longer.  Your cruel letter is in Madame de
+Maintenon's hands.  She will let you read it again before committing it
+to the fire, and I beg you to inform her what is the harm she has done
+you."
+
+"Madame," said Madame de Maintenon to her, when she saw her before her,
+"when your amiable mother left this Court, where the slightest prosperity
+attracts envy, I promised her to take some care of your childhood, and I
+have kept my word.
+
+"I have always treated you with gentleness and consideration; whence
+proceeds your hate against me of to-day?  Is your young heart capable of
+it?  I believed you to be a model of gratitude and goodness."
+
+"Madame," replied the young Princess, weeping, "deign to pardon this
+imprudence of mine and to reconcile me with the King, whom I love so
+much."
+
+"I have not the credit which you assume me to have," replied the lady in
+waiting, coldly.  "Except for the extreme kindness of the King you would
+not be where you are, and you take it ill that I should be where I am!
+I have neither desired nor solicited the arduous rank that I occupy; I
+need resignation and obedience to support such a burden."  Madame de
+Maintenon resumed her work.  The Princess, not daring to interrupt her
+silence, made the bow that was expected of her and withdrew.
+
+The Marquis de Louvois, when he read what his own son-in-law dared to
+write of the monarch, grew pale and swooned away with grief.  He cast
+himself several times before the feet of his master, asking now the
+punishment and now the pardon of a criminal and a madman.
+
+"I believed myself to be loved by your family," cried the King.  "What
+must I do, then, to be loved?  And, great God! with what a set I am
+surrounded!"
+
+All these things transpired.  Soon we saw the father of the audacious De
+Liancourt arrive like a man bereft of his wits.  He ran to precipitate
+himself at the feet of the King.
+
+"M. de La Rochefoucauld," said the prince to him, "I was ignorant, until
+this day, that I was lacking in what is called martial prowess; but I
+shall at least have, on this occasion, the courage to despise the
+slanderous slights of these presumptuous youths.  Do not talk to me of
+the submissions and regrets of your two sons, who are unworthy of you;
+let them live as far away from me as possible; they do not deserve to
+approach an honest man, such as their King."
+
+The Prince de Turenne,
+
+     [The Prince de Turenne was in bad odour at Court ever since he had
+     separated Monseigneur from his young wife by exaggerating that
+     Princess's small failings.--MADAME DE MONTESPAN'S NOTE.]
+
+son of the Duc de Bouillon, and Prince Eugene of Savoy, third or fourth
+son of the Comtesse de Soissons (Olympe Mancini), had accompanied their
+cousins De Conti on this knightly expedition; all these gentlemen
+returned at the conclusion of the war, except Prince Eugene, a violent
+enemy of the King.
+
+This young Prince of the second branch, seeing his mother's disgrace
+since the great affair of the poison, hated me mortally.  He carried his
+treachery so far as to attribute to me the misfortunes of Olympe, saying,
+and publishing all over Paris, that I had incited accusers in order to be
+able to deprive her forcibly of her superintendence.  This post, which
+had been sold to me for four hundred thousand francs, had been paid for
+long since; that did not prevent Eugene from everywhere affirming the
+contrary.
+
+Since the flight or exile of his lady mother, he had taken it into his
+head to dream of the episcopate, and to solicit Pere de la Chaise on the
+subject.  But the King, who does not like frivolous or absurd figures in
+high offices, decided that a little man with a deformity would repel
+rather than attract deference at a pinnacle of dignity of the priesthood.
+
+Refused for the episcopate, M. de Soissons thought he might offer himself
+as a colonel.  His Majesty, who did not know the military ways of this
+abbe, refused him anew, both as an abbe and as a hunchback, and as a
+public libertine already degraded by his irregularities.
+
+From all these refusals and mortifications there sprung his firm resolve
+to quit France.  He had been born there; he left all his family there
+except his mother; he declared himself its undying enemy, and said
+publicly in Germany that Louis XIV. would shed tears of blood for the
+injury and the affront which he had offered him.
+
+MM. de Conti, after the events in Hungary and at Vienna, returned to
+France covered with laurels.  They came to salute the King at Versailles.
+His Majesty gave them neither a good nor a bad reception.  The Princes
+left the same day for Chantilly,  where M. de Conde, their paternal
+uncle, tried to curb their too romantic imaginations and guaranteed their
+good behaviour in the future.
+
+This life, sedentary or spent in hunting, began to weary them, when
+overruling Providence was pleased to send them a diversion of the highest
+importance.  M. le Prince de Conti was seized suddenly with that burning
+fever which announces the smallpox.  Every imaginable care was useless;
+he died of it and bequeathed, in spite of himself, a most premature and
+afflicting widowhood to his young and charming spouse, who was not, till
+long afterwards, let into the secret of his scandalous excesses.
+
+M. de la Roche-sur-Yon, his only brother, was as distressed at his death
+as though he had nothing to gain by it; he took immediately the name of
+Conti, and doffed the other, which he had hitherto borne as a borrowed
+title.  The domain and county of La Roche-sur-Yon belongs to the Grande
+Mademoiselle.  She had been asked to make this condescension when the
+young Prince was born.  She agreed with a good grace, for the child, born
+prematurely, did not seem likely to live.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+Ninon at Court.--The King behind the Glass.--Anxiety of the Marquise on
+the Subject of This Interview.--Visit to Madame de Maintenon.--Her Reply
+and Her Ambiguous Promise.
+
+Mademoiselle de l'Enclos is universally known in the world for the
+agreeableness of her superior wit and her charms of face and person.
+When Madame de Maintenon, after the loss of her father, arrived from
+Martinique, she had occasion to make her acquaintance; and it seems that
+it was Ninon who, seeing her debating between the offers of M. Scarron
+and the cloister, succeeded in persuading her to marry the rich poet,
+though he was a cripple, rather than to bury herself, so young, in a
+convent of Ursulines or Bernardines, even were the convent in Paris.
+
+At the death of the poet Scarron (who when he married, and when he died,
+possessed only a life annuity), Mademoiselle d'Aubigne, once more in
+poverty, found in Mademoiselle de l'Enclos a generous and persevering
+friend, who at once offered her her house and table.  Mademoiselle
+d'Aubigne passed eight or ten months in the intimate society of this
+philosophical woman.  But her conscience, or her prudery, not permitting
+her to tolerate longer a manner of life in which she seemed to detect
+license, she quitted Ninon, advising her to renounce coquetry, whilst the
+other was advising her to abandon herself to it.
+
+There, where Madame Scarron found the tune of good society with wit, she
+looked upon herself as in her proper sphere, as long as no open scandal
+was brought to her notice.  She consented still to remain her friend; but
+the fear of passing for an approver or an accomplice prevented her from
+remaining if there were any publicity.  It was not exactly through her
+scruples, it was through her vanity.  I have had proof of this on various
+occasions, and I have made no error.
+
+The pretended amours of Mademoiselle d'Aubigne and the Marquis de
+Villarceaux, Ninon's friend, are an invention of malicious envy.  I
+justified Madame Scarron on the matter before the King, when I asked her
+for the education of the Princes; and having rendered her this justice,
+from conviction rather than necessity, I shall certainly not charge her
+with it to-day.  Madame de Maintenon possesses a fund of philosophy which
+she does not reveal nor confess to everybody.  She fears God in the
+manner of Socrates and Plato; and as I have seen her more than once make
+game, with infinite wit, of the Abbe Gobelin, her confessor, who is a
+pedant and avaricious, I am persuaded that she knows much more about it
+than all these proud doctors in theology, and that she would be
+thoroughly capable of confessing her confessor.
+
+She had remained, then, the friend of Ninon, but at heart and in
+recollection, without sending her news or seeing her again.  Mademoiselle
+de l'Enclos, rich, disinterested, and proud of her independent position,
+learned with pleasure the triumph of her former friend, but without
+writing to her or congratulating her.  Ninon, by the consent of all those
+who have come near her, is good-nature itself.  One of her relations, or
+friends, was a candidate for a vacant post as farmer-general, and
+besought her to make some useful efforts for him.
+
+"I have no one but Madame de Maintenon," she replied to this relation.
+And the other said to her:
+
+"Madame de Maintenon?  It is as though you had the King himself!"
+
+Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, trimming her pen with her trusty knife, wrote
+to the lady in waiting an agreeable and polished letter, one of those
+letters, careful without stiffness, that one writes, indulging oneself a
+little with the intention of getting oneself read.
+
+The letter of solicitation seemed so pretty to the lady in waiting that
+she made the King peruse it.
+
+"This is an excellent opportunity for me," said the prince at once, "to
+see with my own eyes this extraordinary, person, of whom I have so long
+heard talk.  I saw her one day at the opera, but just when she was
+getting into her carriage; and my incognito did not permit me to approach
+her.  She seemed to me small, but well made.  Her carriage drove off like
+a flash."
+
+To meet this curiosity which the King displayed, it was agreed that
+Madame de Maintenon, on the pretext of having a better consultation,
+should summon Mademoiselle de l'Enclos to Versailles, and that in one of
+the alcoves of the chapel she should be given a place which should put
+her almost in front of his Majesty.
+
+She arrived some minutes before mass.  Madame de Maintenon received her
+with marked attention, mingled with reserve, promised her support with
+the ministers when the affair should be discussed, and made her promise
+to pass the entire day, at Versailles, for the King was obliged to visit
+the new gardens at Marly.
+
+The time for mass being come, Madame de Maintenon said to the fair
+Epicurean, with a smile: "You are one of us, are you not?  The music will
+be delicious in the chapel to-day; you will not have a moment of
+weariness."
+
+Ninon, meeting this slight reproach with a smile of propriety, replied
+that she adored and respected everything which the monarch respected.
+
+During the service, the King, tranquilly, secluded in his golden box,
+could see and examine the lady at his leisure, without compromising
+himself or embarrassing her by his gaze.  As for her, her decent and
+quite appropriate attitude merited for her the approval of her old
+friend, of the King, and of the most critical eyes.
+
+The monarch, in effect, departed, not for the Chateau of Marly, but for
+Trianon; and hardly had he reached there before, in a little, very close
+carriage, he was brought back to Versailles.  He went up to Madame de
+Maintenon's apartments by the little staircase in the Prince's Court, and
+stole into the glass closet without being observed, except by a solitary
+lackey.
+
+The ladies, believing themselves to be alone and at liberty, talked
+without ceremony or constraint, as though they had been but twenty years
+old.  The King was very much grieved at the things which were said, but
+he heard, without losing a word, the following dialogue or interview
+
+NINON DE L'ENCLOS.--It is not my preservation which should surprise you,
+since from morning to night I breathe that voluptuous air of independence
+which refreshes the blood, and puts in play its circulation.  I am
+morally the same person whom you came to see in the pretty little house
+in the Rue de Tournelles.  My dressing-gown, as you well know, was my
+preferred and chosen garb.  To-day, as then, Madame la Marquise, I should
+choose to place on my escutcheon the Latin device of the towns of San
+Marino and Lucca,--Libertas.  You have complimented me on my beauty; I
+congratulate you upon yours, and I am surprised that you have so kept and
+preserved it in the midst of the constraints and servitude that grandeur
+and greatness involve.
+
+MADAME DE MAINTENON.--At the commencement, I argued as you argue, and
+believed that I should never get to the year's end without disgust.
+Little by little I imposed silence upon my emotions and my regrets.
+A life of great activity and occupation, by separating us, as it were,
+from ourselves, extinguishes those exacting niceties, both of our proper
+sensibility, and of our self-conceit.  I remembered my sufferings,
+my fears, and my privations after the death of that poor man;--[It was so
+that she commonly spoke of her husband, Scarron.]--and since labour has
+been the yoke imposed by God on every human being, I submitted with a
+good grace to the respectable labour of education.  Few teachers are
+attached to their pupils; I attached myself to mine with tenderness, with
+delight.  It is true that it was my privilege to find the King's children
+amiable and pretty, as few children are.
+
+NINON DE L'ENCLOS.--From the most handsome and amiable man in the world
+there could not come mediocre offspring.  M. du Maine is your idol; the
+King has given him his noble bearing, with his intelligence; and you have
+inoculated him with your wit.  Is it true that Madame de Montespan is no
+longer your friend?  That is a rumour which has credit in the capital;
+and if the thing is true I regret it, and am sorry for you.
+
+MADAME DE MAINTENON.--Madame de Montespan, as all Paris knows, obtained
+my pension for me after the death of the Queen-mother.  This service,
+comparable with a favour, will always remain in my heart and my memory.
+I have thanked her a thousand times for it, and I always shall thank her
+for it.  At the time when the young Queen of Portugal charged herself
+with my fate and fortune, the Marquise, who had known me at the Hotel
+d'Albret, desired to retain me in France, where she destined for me the
+children of the King.  I did what she desired; I took charge of his
+numerous children out of respect for my benefactor, and attachment to
+herself.  To-day, when their first education is completed, and his
+Majesty has recompensed me with the gift of the Maintenon estate, the
+Marquise pretends that my role is finished, that I was wrong to let
+myself be made lady in waiting, and that the recognition due to her
+imposes an obligation on me to obey her in everything, and withdraw from
+this neighbourhood.
+
+NINON DE L'ENCLOS.--Absolutely
+
+MADAME DE MAINTENON.--Yes, really, I assure you.
+
+NINON DE L'ENCLOS.--A departure?  An absolute retreat?  Oh, it is too
+much!  Does she wish you, then, to resign your office?
+
+MADAME DE MAINTINON.--I cannot but think so, mademoiselle.
+
+NINON DE L'ENCLOS.--Speaking personally, and for my private satisfaction,
+I should be enchanted to see you quit the Court and return to society.
+Society is your element.  You know it by heart; you have shone there,
+and there you would shine again.  On reappearing, you would see yourself
+instantly surrounded by those delicate and (pardon the expression)
+sensuous minds who applauded with such delight your agreeable stories,
+your brilliant and solid conversation.  Those pleasant, idle hours were
+lost to us when you left us, and I shall always remember them.  At the
+Court, where etiquette selects our words, as it rules our attitudes, you
+cannot be yourself; I must confess that frankly.  You do not paint your
+lovely face, and I am obliged to you for that, madame; but it is
+impossible for you to refrain from somewhat colouring your discourse, not
+with the King, perhaps, whose always calm gaze transparently reveals the
+man of honour, but with those eminences, those grandeurs, those royal and
+serene highnesses, whose artificial and factitious perfumes already
+filled your chapel before the incense of the sacrifice had wreathed its
+clouds round the high altar.
+
+The King, suddenly showing himself, somewhat to the surprise of the
+ladies, said: "I have long wished, mademoiselle, this unique and
+agreeable opportunity for which I am indebted to Madame de Maintenon.
+Be seated, I pray you, and permit 'my Highness', slightly perfumed though
+I be, to enjoy for a moment your witty conversation and society.  What!
+The atmosphere does not meet with your approval, and, in order to have
+madame's society, you desire to disgust her with it herself, and deprive
+us of her?"
+
+"Sire," answered Ninon, "I have not enough power or authority to render
+my intentions formidable, and my long regrets will be excused, I hope,
+since, if madame left Versailles, she would cause the same grief there
+that she has caused us."
+
+"One has one's detractors in every conceivable locality.  If Madame de
+Maintenon has met with one at Versailles she would not be exempt from
+them anywhere else.  At Paris, you would be without rampart or armour,
+I like to believe; but deign to grant me this preference,--I can very
+well protect my friends.  I think the town is ill-informed, and that
+Madame de Montespan has no interest in separating madame from her
+children, who are also mine.
+
+"You will greatly oblige me, mademoiselle, if you will adopt this opinion
+and publish it in your society, which is always select, though it is so
+numerous."
+
+Then the King, passing to other subjects, brought up, of his own accord,
+the place of farmer-general, which happened to be vacant; and he said to
+Mademoiselle de l'Enclos: "I promise you this favour with pleasure, the
+first which you have ever solicited of me, and I must beg you to address
+yourself to Madame de Maintenon on every occasion when your relations or
+yourself have something to ask from me.  You must see clearly,
+mademoiselle, that it is well to leave madame in this place, as an agent
+with me for you, and your particular ambassadress."
+
+I learnt all these curious details five or six days later from a young
+colonel, related to me, to whom Mademoiselle de l'Enclos narrated her
+admission and interview at Versailles.  In reproducing the whole of this
+scene, I have not altered the sense of a word; I have only sought to make
+up for the charm which every conversation loses that is reported by a
+third party who was not actually an eyewitness.
+
+This confidence informed me that prejudices were springing up against me
+in the mind of the favourite.  I went to see her, as though my visit were
+an ordinary one, and asked her what one was to think of Ninon's interview
+with the King.
+
+"Yes," she said, "his Majesty has for a long time past had a great desire
+to see her, as a person of much wit, and of whom he has heard people
+speak since his youth.  He imagined her to have larger eyes, and
+something a little more virile in her physiognomy.  He was greatly, and,
+I must say, agreeably surprised, to find that he had been deceived.
+'One can see eyes of far greater size,' his Majesty told me, 'but not
+more brilliant, more animated or amiable.  Her mouth, admirably moulded,
+is almost as small as Madame de Montespan's.  Her pretty, almost round
+face has something Georgian about it, unless I am mistaken.  She says,
+and lets you understand, everything she likes; she awaits your replies
+without interruption; her contradictions preserve urbanity; she is
+respectful without servility; her pleasant voice, although not of silver,
+is none the less the voice of a nymph.  In conclusion, I am charmed with
+her.'"
+
+"Does she believe me hostile to your prosperity, my dear Marquise?"  I
+said at once to Madame de Maintenon, who seemed slightly confused, and
+answered: "Mademoiselle de l'Enclos is not personally of that opinion;
+she had heard certain remarks to that effect in the salons of the town;
+and I have given her my most explicit assurance that, if you should ever
+cease to care for me, my inclination and my gratitude would be none the
+less yours, madame, so long as I should live."
+
+"You owe me those sentiments," I resumed, with a trifle too much fire;
+"I have a right to count on them.  But it is most painful to me,
+I confess, after having given all my youth to the King, to see him now
+cool down, even in his courtesy.  The hours which he used to pass with me
+he gives to you, and it is impossible that this innovation should not
+seem startling here, since all Paris is informed of it, and Mademoiselle
+de l'Enclos has discussed it with you."
+
+"I owe everything that I am to the goodness of the King," she answered
+me.  "Would you have me, when he comes to me, bid him go elsewhere, to
+you or somebody else, it matters not?"
+
+"No, but I should be glad if your countenance did not, at such a moment,
+expand like a sunflower; I should like you, at the risk of somewhat
+belying yourself, to have the strength to moderate and restrain that vein
+of talk and conversation of which you have given yourself the supremacy
+and monopoly; I wish you had the generosity to show, now and again, less
+wit.  This sort of regime and abstinence would not destroy you off-hand,
+and the worst that could result to you from it would be to pass in his
+eyes for a woman of a variable and intermittent wit; what a great
+calamity!"
+
+"Ah, madame, what is it you suggest!" the lady in waiting replied to me,
+almost taking offence.  "I have never been eccentric or singular with any
+one in the world, and you want me to begin with my King!  It cannot be,
+I assure you!  Suggest to me reasonable and possible things, and I will
+enter into all your views with all my heart and without hesitation."
+
+This reply shocked me to the point of irritation.
+
+"I believed you long to be a simple and disinterested soul," I said to
+her, "and it was in this belief that I gave you my cordial affection.
+Now I read your heart, and all your projects are revealed to me.  You are
+not only greedy of respect and consideration, you are ambitious to the
+point of madness.  The King's widowhood has awakened all your wild
+dreams; you confided to me fifteen years ago that the soothsayer of the
+Marechale d'Albret had predicted for you a sceptre and a crown."
+
+At these words, the governess made me a sign to lower my voice, and said
+to me, with an accent of candour and good faith, which it is impossible
+for me to forget: "I confided to you at the time that puerility of
+society, just as the Marechale and the Marshal (without believing it)
+related it to all France.  But this prognostication need not alarm you,
+madame," she added; "a King like ours is incapable of such an
+extravagance, and if he were to determine on it, it would not have my
+countenance nor approval.
+
+"I do not think that thus far I have passed due limits; the granddaughter
+of a great noble, of a first gentleman of the chamber, I have been able
+to become a lady in waiting without offending the eyes; but the lady in
+waiting will never be Queen, and I give you my permission to insult me
+publicly when I am."
+
+Such was this conversation, to which I have not added a word.  We shall
+see soon how Madame de Maintenon kept her word to me, and if I am not
+right in owing her a grudge for this promise with a double meaning, with
+which it was her caprice to decoy me by her shuffling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+Birth of the Duc d'Anjou.--The Present to the Mother.--The Casket of
+Patience.--Departure of the King for the Army.--The King Turns a Deaf
+Ear.--How That Concerns Madame de Maintenon. --The Prisoner of the
+Bastille.--The Danger of Caricatures.--The Administrative Thermometer.--
+Actors Who Can neither Be Applauded nor Hissed.--Relapse of the Prisoner.
+--Scarron's Will.--A Fine Subject for Engraving.--Madame de Maintenon's
+Opinion upon the Jesuits.--The Audience of the Green Salon.--Portions
+from the Refectory.--Madame de Maintenon's Presence of Mind.--I Will Make
+You Schoolmaster.
+
+Madame la Dauphine, greatly pleased with her new position, in that she
+represented the person of the Queen, had already given birth to M. le Duc
+de Bourgogne; she now brought into the world a second son, who was at
+once entitled Duc d'Anjou.  The King, to thank her for this gift, made
+her a present of an oriental casket, which could only be opened by a
+secret spring, and that not before one had essayed it for half an hour.
+Madame la Dauphine found in it a superb set of pearls and four thousand
+new louis d'or.  As she had no generosity in her heart, she bestowed no
+bounties on her entourage.  The King this year made an expedition to
+Flanders.  Before getting into his carriage he came and passed half an
+hour or forty minutes with me, and asked me if I should not go and pass
+the time of his absence at the Petit-Bourg.
+
+"At Petit-Bourg and at Bourbon," I answered, "unless you allow me to
+accompany you."  He feigned not to have heard me, and said: "Lauzun, who,
+eleven or twelve years ago, refused the baton of a marshal of France,
+asks to accompany me into Flanders as aide-de-camp.  Purge his mind of
+such ideas, and give him to understand that his part is played out with
+me."
+
+"What business is it of mine," I asked with vivacity, "to teach M. de
+Lauzun how to behave?  Let Madame de Maintenon charge herself with these
+homilies; she is in office, and I am there no longer."
+
+These words troubled the King; he said to me:
+
+"You will do well to go to Bourbon until my return from Flanders."
+
+He left on the following day, and the same day I took my departure.
+I went to spend a week at my little convent of Saint Joseph, where the
+ladies, who thought I was still in favour, received me with marks of
+attention and their accustomed respect.  On the third day, the prioress,
+announcing herself by my second waiting-woman, came to present me with a
+kind of petition or prayer, which, I confess, surprised me greatly, as I
+had never commissioned any one to practise severity in my name.
+
+A man, detained at the Bastille for the last twelve years, implored me in
+this document to have compassion on his sufferings, and to give orders
+which would strike off his chains and irons.
+
+"My intention," he said, "was not, madame, to offend or harm you.
+Artists are somewhat feather-headed, and I was then only twenty."  This
+petition was signed "Hathelin, prisoner of State."  I had my horses put
+in my carriage at once, and betook myself to the chateau of the Bastille,
+the Governor of which I knew.
+
+When I set foot in this formidable fortress, in spite of myself I
+experienced a thrill of terror.
+
+The attentions of public men are a thermometer, which, instead of our own
+notions, is very capable of letting us know the just degree of our
+favour.  The Governor of the Bastille, some months before, would have
+saluted me with his artillery; perhaps he still received me with a
+certain ceremony, but without putting any ardour into his politeness,
+or drawing too much upon himself.  In such circumstances one must see
+without regarding these insults of meanness, and, by a contrivance of
+distraction, escape from vile affronts.  The object of my expedition
+being explained, the Governor found on his register that poor Hathelin,
+aged thirty-two to thirty-four years, was an engraver by profession.
+The lieutenant-general of police had arrested him long ago for a comic
+or satirical engraving on the subject of M. le Marquis de Montespan and
+the King.
+
+I desired to see Hathelin, quite determined to ask his pardon for all his
+sufferings, with which I was going to occupy myself exclusively until I
+was successful.  The Governor, a man all formality and pride, told me
+that he had not the necessary authority for this communication; I was
+obliged to return to my carriage without having tranquillised my poor
+captive.
+
+The same evening I called upon the lieutenant-general of police, and,
+after having eloquently pleaded the cause of this forgotten young man,
+I discovered that there was no 'lettre de cachet' to his prejudice, and
+procured his liberation.
+
+He came to pay his respects and thanks to me, in my parlour at Saint
+Joseph, on the very day of his liberation.  He seemed to me much younger
+than his age, which astonished me greatly after his misfortunes.  I gave
+him six thousand francs, in order to indemnify him slightly for that
+horrible Bastille.  At first he hesitated to take them.
+
+"Let your captivity be a lesson to you," I said to him; "the affairs of
+kings do not concern us.  When such actors occupy the scene, it is
+permissible neither to applaud nor to hiss."
+
+Hathelin promised me to be good, and for the future to concern himself
+only with his graver and his private business.  He wished me a thousand
+good wishes, with an expansion of heart which caused his tears and mine
+to flow.  But artists are not made like other men; he, for all his good
+heart, was gifted with one of those ardent imaginations which make
+themselves critics and judges of notable personages, and, above all, of
+favourites of fortune.  Barely five or six months had elapsed when
+Hathelin published a new satirical plate, in which Madame de Maintenon
+was represented as weeping, or pretending to weep, over the sick-bed of
+M. Scarron.  The dying man was holding an open will in his hand, in which
+one could read these words: "I leave you my permission to marry again--a
+rich and serious man--more so than I am."
+
+The print had already been widely distributed when the engraver and his
+plate were seized.  This time Hathelin had not the honour of the
+Bastille; he was sent to some depot.  And although his action was
+absolutely fresh and unknown to me, all Paris was convinced that I had
+inspired his unfortunate talent.  Madame de Maintenon was convinced of
+it, and believes it still.  The King has done me the honour to assure me
+lately that he had banished the idea from his mind; but he was so
+persuaded of it at first that he could not pardon me for so black an
+intrigue, and, but for the fear of scandal, would have hanged the
+engraver, Hathelin, in order to provide my gentlemen, the engravers, with
+a subject for a fine plate.
+
+About the same time, the Jesuits caused Madame de Maintenon a much more
+acute pain than that of the ridiculous print.  She endured this blow with
+her accustomed courage; nevertheless, she conceived such a profound
+aversion to the leaders of this ever-restless company, that she has never
+been seen in their churches, and was at the greatest pains to rob them of
+the interior of Saint Cyr.  "They are men of intrigue," she said to
+Madame de Montchevreuil, her friend and confidante.  "The name of Jesus
+is always in their mouths, he is in their solemn device, they have taken
+him for their banner and namesake; but his candour, his humility are
+unknown to them.  They would like to order everything that exists, and
+rule even in the palaces of kings.  Since they have the privilege and
+honour of confessing our monarch, they wish to impose the same bondage
+upon me.  Heaven preserve me from it!  I do not want rectors of colleges
+and professors to direct my unimportant conscience.  I like a confessor
+who lets you speak, and not those who put words into your mouth."
+
+With the intention of mortifying her and then of being able to publish
+the adventure, they charged one of their instruments to seek her out at
+Versailles in order to ask an audience of her, not as a Jesuit, but as a
+plain churchman fallen upon adversity.
+
+The petition of this man having been admitted, he received a printed form
+which authorised him to appear before madame at her time of good works,
+for she had her regular hours for everything.  He was introduced into the
+great green salon, which was destined, as one knows, for this kind of
+audience.  There were many people present, and before all this company
+this old fox thus unfolded himself:
+
+"Madame, I bless the Sovereign Dispenser of all things for what he has
+done for you; you have merited his protection from your tenderest youth.
+When, after your return from Martinique, you came to dwell in the little
+town of Niort, with your lady mother, I saw you often in our Jesuit
+church, which was at two paces from your house.  Your modesty, your
+youth, your respectful tenderness towards Madame la Baronne d'Aubigne,
+your excellent mother, attracted the attention of our community, who saw
+you every day in the temple with a fresh pleasure, as you can well
+imagine.  Madame la Baronne died; and we learnt that those tremendous
+lawsuits with the family not having been completed before her death, she
+left you, and M. Charles, your brother, in the most frightful poverty.
+At that news, our Fathers (who are so charitable, so compassionate)
+ordered me to reserve every day, for the two young orphans, two large
+portions from the refectory, and to bring them to you myself in your
+little lodging.
+
+"To-day, being no longer, owing to my health, in the congregation of the
+Jesuit Fathers, I should be glad to obtain a place conformable with my
+ancient occupations.  My good angel has inspired me with the thought,
+madame, to come and solicit your powerful protection and your good
+graces."
+
+Madame de Maintenon, having sustained this attack with fortitude, and it
+was not without vigour, replied to the petitioner: "I have had the honour
+of relating to his Majesty, not so very long ago, the painful and
+afflicting circumstance which you have just recalled to me.  Your
+companions, for one fortnight, were at the pains to send to my little
+brother and to me a portion of their food.  Our relations; who enjoyed
+all our property, had reduced us to indigence.  But, as soon as my
+position was ameliorated, I sent fifteen hundred francs to the Reverend
+Father Superior of the Jesuits for his charities.  That manner of
+reimbursement has not acquitted me, and I could not see an unfortunate
+man begging me for assistance without remembering what your house once
+did for me.  I do not remember your face, monsieur, but I believe your
+simple assertion.  If you are in holy orders I will recommend you to the
+Archbishop of Rouen, who will find you a place suitable for you.  Are you
+in holy orders?"
+
+"No, madame," replied the ex-Jesuit; I was merely a lay brother."
+
+"In that case," replied the Marquise, "we can offer you a position as
+schoolmaster; and the Jesuit Fathers, if they have any esteem for you,
+should have rendered you this service, for they have the power to do
+that, and more."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Always sold at a loss which must be sold at a given moment
+Permissible neither to applaud nor to hiss
+Respectful without servility
+She awaits your replies without interruption
+These liars in surplice, in black cassock, or in purple
+Wish you had the generosity to show, now and again, less wit
+You know, madame, that he generally gets everything he wants
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, v6
+by Madame La Marquise De Montespan
+
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