BESPAIE OF HONTESPA1L

Fortune, I dare not say Providence, which was preparing for
the haughtiest of kings, humiliation the most profound, the
most public, the most durable, the most unheard-of, strength-
ened more and more Ms taste for this woman, so adroit and
expert at her trade; while the continued ill humour and jealousy
of Madame de Montespan rendered the new union still more
solid. It was this that Madame de S^vigne so prettily paints,
enigmatically, in her letters to Madame de Grignan, in which
she sometimes talks of these Court movements; for
de Maintenon had beea in Paris in the society of Madame de
S^vignd, of Madame de Coulange, of Madame de La Fayette, l;

and had begun to make them feel her importance. Charming
touches are to be seen in the same style upon the favour, veiled
but brilliant, enjoyed by Madame de Soubise.

It was while the King was in the midst of his partiality for
Madame de Maintenon that the Queen died. It was at the
same time, too, that the ill humour of Madame de Montespan
became more and more insupportable. This imperious beauty,
accustomed to domineer and to be adored, could not
against the despair which the prospect of her fall her.

What carried her beyond all hounds, was that she no

longer disguise from herself, that she had an abject rivil
she had supported, who owed everything to her; whom she
had so much liked that she had several times refused to
her when pressed to do so by the King; a rival, too, so
her in beauty, and older by several years; to feel thai It
this lady's-maid, not to say this servant, that the King
frequently went to see; that he sought only her; he
not dissimulate his uneasiness if he did not find her; he
quitted all for her; in fine, that at all moments she
de Montespan) needed the intervention of Madame de
non, in order to attract the King to reconcile her with him, or
to obtain the favours she asked for. It was then, in so

propitious to the enchantress, that the King became free by the
death of the Queen.

He passed the first few days at Saint Cloud, at Monsieur's,,
whence he went to Fontainebleau, where he spent all the