MONTESPAK AND HEB RIVALS. 375

During her reign she did not fail to have causes for jealousy.
There was Mademoiselle de Fontange, who pleased the King
sufficiently to become his mistress. But she had no intellect,
and without that it was impossible to maintain supremacy
over the King. Her early death quickly put an end to this
amour. Then there was Madame de Soubise, who, by the
infamous connivance of her husband, prostituted herself to the
King, and thus secured all sorts of advantages for that husband,
for herself, and for her children. The love of the King for
her continued until her death, although for many years before
that he had ceased to see her in private. Then there was the
beautiful Ludre, demoiselle of Lorraine, and maid of honour to
Madame, who was openly loved for a moment. But this amour
"was a flash of lightning, and Madame de Montespan remained
triumphant.

Let us now pass to another kind of amour which astonished
all the world as much as the other had scandalised it, and
which the King carried with him to the tomb. Who does not
already recognise the celebrated Frangoise d'Aubign6, Marquise
de Maintenon, whose permanent reign did not last less than
thirty-two years ? .

Born in the American islands, where her father, perhaps a
gentleman, had gone to seek his bread, and where he was stifled
by obscurity, she returned alone and at haphazard into France.
She landed at La EocheUe, and was received in pity by Madame
de Neuillant, mother of the Mar^chale Duchesse de Navailles,
and was reduced by that avaricious old woman to keep the
keys of her granary, and to see the hay measured out to her
horses, as I have already related elsewhere. She came after-
wards to Paris, young, clever, witty, and beautiful, without
friends and without money; and by lucky chance made ac-
quaintance with the famous Scarron. He found her amiable;
his friends perhaps still more so. Marriage with this joyous
and learned cripple appeared to her the greatest and most
unlooked-for good fortune; and folks who were, perhaps, more
in want of a wife than he, persuaded him to marry her, and
thus raise this charming unfortunate from her misery.