She next led her guests towards the large apartments.  When she had come to her bedroom, she showed the Marquise the mysterious portrait, and asked if she recognised it.

“Ah, my God! ’tis himself!” said Madame de Maintenon at once.  “He sees, he breathes, he regards us; one might believe one heard him speak.  Why do you give yourself this torture?” continued the ambassadress.  “The continual presence of an unhappy and beloved being feeds your grief, and this grief insensibly undermines you.  In your place, Princess, I should put him elsewhere until a happier and more favourable hour.”

“That hour will never come,” cried Mademoiselle.

“Pardon me,” resumed Madame de Maintenon; “the King is never inhuman and inexorable; you should know that better than any one.  He punishes only against the protests of his heart, and, as soon as he can relent without impropriety or danger, he pardons.  M. de Lauzun, by refusing haughtily the marshal’s baton, which was offered him in despite of his youth, deeply offended the King, and the disturbance he allowed himself to make at Madame de Montespan’s depicted him as a dangerous and wrong-headed man.  Those are his sins.  Rest assured, Princess, that I am well informed.  But as I know, at the same time, that the King was much attached to him,—­and is still so, to some extent, and that a captivity of ten years is a rough school, I have the assurance that your Highness will not be thought importunate if you make today some slight attempt towards a clemency.”

“I will do everything they like,” Mademoiselle de Montpensier said then; “but shall I have any one near his Majesty to assist and support my undertaking?  I have no more trust in Madame de Montespan; she has betrayed us, she will betray us again; the offence of M. de Lauzun is always present in her memory, and she is a lady who does not easily forgive.  As for you, madame, I know that the King considers you for the invaluable services of the education given to his children.  Deign to speak and act in favour of my unhappy husband, and I will make you a present of one of my fine titled territories.”

Madame de Maintenon was too acute to accept anything in such a case; she answered the Princess that her generosities, to please the King, should be offered to M. le Duc du Maine, and that, by assuring a part of her succession to that young prince, she had a sure method of moving the monarch, and of turning his paternal gratitude to the most favourable concessions.  The Princess, enchanted, then said to the negotiatrix: 

“Be good enough to inform his Majesty, this evening, that I offer to give, at once, to his dear and amiable child the County of Eu and my Sovereignty of Dombes, adding the revenues to them if it is necessary.”

Madame de Maintenon, who worships her pupil, kissed the hand of Mademoiselle, and promised to return and see her immediately.

That very evening she gave an account to the King of her embassy; she solicited the liberty of the Marquis de Lauzun, and the King commenced by granting “the authorisation of mineral waters.”