“Madame,” she replied, “you have not seen, as I did, those eyes of the unhappy man forced violently from their sockets, his poor crushed head, his palpitating heart, from which the blood soaked the pavement; such a sight has moved and broken my own heart.  I was, as I am still, quite beside myself, and, in such a situation, it is permissible to forget discretion in one’s speech and the proprieties.  I had no intention of giving you pain; I am distressed at having done so.  But as for your coachmen I loathe them, and, since you undertake their defence, I shall not for the future show myself in your equipage.”

[In one of her letters, Madame de Maintenon speaks of this accident, but she does not give quite the same account of it.  It is natural that Madame de Montespan seeks to excuse her people and herself if she can.—­Editor’s note.]

At Ruel, she dared take the same tone before the Duchesse de Richelieu, who rebuked her for officiousness, and out of spite, or some other reason, Madame de Maintenon refused to dine.  She had two or three swooning fits; her tears started afresh four or five times, and the Marquise d’Hudicourt, who dined only by snatches, went into a corner to sob and weep along with her.

“Admit, madame,” I said then to Madame de Maintenon, “your excessive grief for an unknown man is singular.  He was, perhaps, actually a dishonest fellow.  The accident which you come back to incessantly, and which distresses me also, is doubtless deplorable; but, after all, it is not a murder, an ambush, a premeditated assassination.  I imagine that if such a catastrophe had happened elsewhere, and been reported to us in a gazette or a book, you would have read of it with interest and commiseration; but we should not have seen you clasp your hands over your head, turn red and pale, utter loud cries, shed tears, sob, and scold a coachman, postilions, perhaps even me.  The event, would, nevertheless, be actually the same.  Admit, then, madame, and you, too, Madame d’Hudicourt, that there is an exaggeration in your sorrow, and that you would have made, both of you, two excellent comedians.”

Madame de Maintenon, piqued at these last words, sought to make us understand, and even make us admit, that there is a great difference between an event narrated to you by a third party, and an event which one has seen.  Madame de Richelieu shut her mouth pleasantly with these words:  “We know, Madame la Marquise, how much eloquence and wit is yours.  We approve all your arguments, past and to be.  Let us speak no further of an accident which distresses you; and since you require to be diverted, let us go to the Opera, which is only two leagues off.”

She consented to accompany us, for fear of proving herself entirely ridiculous; but to delay us as much as possible, she required a cup of chocolate, her favourite dish, her appetite having returned as soon as she had exhausted the possibilities of her grief.