Of an entirely different type from Mlle. de La Valliere was that haughtiest and most supercilious of all French mistresses, Mme. de Montespan.  The picture drawn by M. Saint-Amand does her full justice:  “A haughty and opulent beauty, a forest of hair, flashing blue eyes, a complexion of splendid carnation and dazzling whiteness, one of those alluring and radiant countenances which shed brightness around them wherever they appear, an incisive, caustic wit, an unquenchable thirst for riches and pleasure, luxury and power, the manners of a goddess audaciously usurping the place of Juno on Olympus, passion without love, pride without true dignity, splendor without harmony—­that was Mme. de Montespan.”  And these qualities were the secret of her success as well as of her fall.

From this description it can easily be divined of what nature was her influence and how she gained and held her power over the king.  She won Louis XIV. entirely by her sensual charms, provoked him by her imperious exactions, her ungovernable fits of temper, and her daring sarcasm; always extravagant and unreasonable, she talked constantly of balls and fetes, the glories of court and its scandals.  Most exacting, yet never satisfied, she had no regard for the interests or honor of the weak king, to whose lower nature only she appealed.

Mme. de Montespan was of noble birth, being the youngest daughter of Rochechouart, first Duke of Mortemart.  She was born in 1641, at the grand old chateau of Tonnay-Charente, and was educated at the convent of Sainte-Marie.  Brought up religiously, she at first evinced a much greater tendency toward religion than toward worldly ambition and vanity.  Mme. de Caylus, in her Souvenirs, wrote that “far from being born depraved, the future favorite had a nature inherently disinclined to gallantry and tending to virtue.  She was flattered at being mistress, not solely for her own pleasure, but on account of the passion of the king; she believed that she could always make him desire what she had resolved never to grant him.  She was in despair at her first pregnancy, consoled herself for the second one, and in all the others carried impudence as far as it could go.”

She was known first as Mlle. Tonnay-Charente, and was maid of honor to the Duchess of Orleans.  When, at the age of twenty-two, she married the Marquis de Montespan and became lady in waiting to the queen, her beauty, wit, and brilliant conversational powers at once made her the centre of attraction; for several years, however, the king scarcely noticed her.  Upon secretly becoming his mistress in 1668 and openly being declared as such two years later, her husband attempted to interfere, and was unceremoniously banished to his estates; in 1676 he was legally separated from her.  She persuaded the king to legitimatize their children, who were confided to Mme. Scarron,—­afterward Mme. de Maintenon,—­who later influenced the king to abandon his mistress.