“Why this air of contempt or aversion?” he said, changing colour.  “Is it to the Marechale de Rochefort or the Marquise de Maintenon that you object?  I esteem both the one and the other, and I am sorry for you if you do not esteem them too.”

“The Marechale de Rochefort,” I replied, without taking any fright, “is aged, and almost always sick; a lady of honour having her appearance will make a contrast with her office.  As to the other, she still has beauty and elegance; but do you imagine, Sire, that the Court of Bavaria and the Court of France have forgotten, in so short a time, the pleasant and burlesque name of the poet Scarron?”

“Every one ought to forget what I have forgotten,” replied the King, “and what my gratitude will not, and cannot forget, I am surprised that you, madame, should take pleasure in forgetting.”

“She has taken care of my children since the cradle, I admit it with pleasure,” said I to his Majesty, without changing my tone; “you have given her a marquisate for recompense, and a superb hotel completely furnished at Versailles.  I do not see that she has any cause for complaint, nor that after such bounty there is more to add.”

“Of eight children that you have brought into the world, madame, she has reared and attended perfectly to six,” replied the King.  “The estate of Maintenon has, at the most, recompensed the education of the Comtes de Vegin, whose childhood was so onerous.  And for the remainder of my little family, what have I yet done that deserves mention?”

“Give her a second estate and money,” I cried, quite out of patience, “since it is money which pays all services of that nature; but what need have you to raise her to great office, and keep her at Court?  She dotes, she says, on her old chateau of Maintenon; do not deprive her of this delight.  By making her lady in waiting, you would be disobliging her.”

“She will accept out of courtesy,” he said to me, putting on an air of mockery.  And as the time for the Council was noted by him on my clock, he went away without adding more.

Since M. le Duc du Maine had grown up, and Mademoiselle de Nantes had been confided to the Marquise de Montchevreuil, Madame de Maintenon continued to occupy her handsome apartment on the Princes’ Court.  There she received innumerable visits, she paid assiduous court to the Queen, who had suddenly formed a taste for her, and took her on her walks and her visits to the communities; but this new Marquise saw me rarely.  Since the affair of the vine-grower, killed on the road, she declared that I had insulted her before everybody, and that I had ordered her imperiously to return to my carriage, as though she had been a waiting-maid, or some other menial.  Her excessive sensibility readily afforded her this pretext, so that she neglected and visibly overlooked me.

As she did not come to me, I betook myself to her at a tolerably early hour, before the flood of visitors, and started her on the history of the lady in waiting.