The King smiled at the conclusions of the lady in waiting, and said to both of us:  “This is between us three, I pray you, ladies; I will keep Pere de la Chaise amused with promises some day.”

Madame de Maintenon, for a brief time in her first youth a Calvinist, cherished always in the bottom of her heart a good share of those suspicions that Calvin’s doctrine is careful to inspire against the Jesuits.

On the other hand, she retained amongst the Parliament a large number of friends whom she had known formerly at M. Scarron’s, the son of a counsellor of the chamber.  I understood that in those circumstances she was well pleased to prove to the gentlemen of Parliament that the interests of their house were kept in good hands, and that she would not abandon her friends of the Place Royale and the Marais for all the Jesuits and all the pyramids in the world.

The Parliament, which was informed of her conduct and fidelity, bore her infinite good-will for it.  The first president, decorated with his blue riband, came; to express his formal thanks, and begged her to accept in perpetuity a key of honour to the High Chamber.

[In famous and unusual causes, princes, ambassadors, and keys of honour came and occupied the lanterns, that is to say, elegant and well furnished tribunes, from which all that passed in the grand hall of the Parliament could be seen.]

The Jesuits, for perseverance and tenacity, can be compared with spiders who repair, or start again every instant at a damaged or broken thread.  When these good fathers knew that their petition had not triumphed offhand, they struck out for some new road to reach the generous heart of the monarch.  Having learnt that an alderman, full of enthusiasm, had just proposed in full assembly at the Hotel de Ville to raise a triumphal monument to the Peacemaker of Europe, and to proclaim him Louis the Great at a most brilliant fete, the Jesuit Fathers cleverly took the initiative, and whilst the Hotel de Ville was deliberating to obtain his Majesty’s consent, the College of Clermont, in the Rue Saint Jacques, brought out its annual thesis, and dedicated it to the King,—­Louis the Great (Ludovico Magno).

On the following day the masons raised scaffolding before the great door of the college, erased the original inscription—­which consisted of the words:  “College of Clermont”—­to substitute for it, in letters of gold:  “Royal College of Louis the Great.”  These items of news reached Versailles one after the other.  The King received them with visible satisfaction, and if only Pere de la Chaise had known how to profit at the time by the emotion and sentiment of the prince, he would have carried off the tall pyramid as an eagle does a sparrow.  The confessor, a man of great circumspection, dared not force his penitent’s hand; he was tactful with him in all things, and the society had the trouble of its famous cajolery without gaining anything more at the game than compliments and gold pieces in sufficient plenty.