“You have had the keeping of a good many of my family jewels,” said he.  “I beg that you will still retain them as a small sign of my regard.”

He had hoped to please her and to calm her, but in an instant she was over at her treasure-cupboard hurling double handfuls of precious stones down at his feet.  They clinked and rattled, the little pellets of red and yellow and green, rolling, glinting over the floor and rapping up against the oak panels at the base of the walls.

“They will do for the governess if the archbishop comes at last,” she cried.

He was more convinced than ever that she had lost her wits.  A thought struck him by which he might appeal to all that was softer and more gentle in her nature.  He stepped swiftly to the door, pushed it half open, and gave a whispered order.  A youth with long golden hair waving down over his black velvet doublet entered the room.  It was her youngest son, the Count of Toulouse.

“I thought that you would wish to bid him farewell,” said Louis.

She stood staring as though unable to realise the significance of his words.  Then it was borne suddenly in upon her that her children as well as her lover were to be taken from her, that this other woman should see them and speak with them and win their love while she was far away.  All that was evil and bitter in the woman flashed suddenly up in her, until for the instant she was what the king had thought her.  If her son was not for her, then he should be for none.  A jewelled knife lay among her treasures, ready to her hand.  She caught it up and rushed at the cowering lad.  Louis screamed and ran forward to stop her; but another had been swifter than he.  A woman had darted through the open door, and had caught the upraised wrist.  There was a moment’s struggle, two queenly figures swayed and strained, and the knife dropped between their feet.  The frightened Louis caught it up, and seizing his little son by the wrist, he rushed from the apartment.  Francoise de Montespan staggered back against the ottoman to find herself confronted by the steady eyes and set face of that other Francoise, the woman whose presence fell like a shadow at every turn of her life.

“I have saved you, madame, from doing that which you would have been the first to bewail.”

“Saved me!  It is you who have driven me to this!”

The fallen favourite leaned against the high back of the ottoman, her hands resting behind her upon the curve of the velvet.  Her lids were half closed on her flashing eyes, and her lips just parted to show a gleam of her white teeth.  Here was the true Francoise de Montespan, a feline creature crouching for a spring, very far from that humble and soft-spoken Francoise who had won the king back by her gentle words.  Madame de Maintenon’s hand had been cut in the struggle, and the blood was dripping down from the end of her fingers, but neither woman had time to spare a thought upon that.  Her firm gray eyes were fixed upon her former rival as one fixes them upon some weak and treacherous creature who may be dominated by a stronger will.