I learnt afterwards from my friends, that upon receiving my letter the King called Chamillart to him, and said with emotion:  “Well!  Monsieur, here is another man who quits us!—­” and he read my letter word for word.  I did not learn that anything else escaped him.

As for me, I did not return to Versailles for a whole week, or see the King again until Easter Monday.  After his supper that evening, and when about to undress himself, he paid me a distinction, a mere trifle I admit, and which I should be ashamed to mention if it did not under the circumstances serve as a characteristic of him.

Although the place he undressed in was very well illuminated, the chaplain at the evening prayers there held in his hand a lighted candle, which he gave afterwards to the chief valet-de-chambre, who carried it before the King until he reached his arm-chair, and then handed it to whomever the King ordered him to give it to.  On this evening the King, glancing all around him, cast his eye upon me, and told the valet to give the candle to me.  It was an honour which he bestowed sometimes upon one, sometimes upon another, according to his whim, but which, by his manner of bestowing it, was always coveted, as a great distinction.  My surprise may be imagined when I heard myself named aloud for this office, not only on this but on many other occasions.  It was not that there was any lack of people of consideration to hold the candle; but the King was sufficiently piqued by my retirement not to wish everybody to see that he was so.

For three years he failed not to make me feel to what extent he was angry with me.  He spoke to me no longer; he scarcely bestowed a glance upon me, and never once alluded to my letter.  To show that his annoyance did not extend to my wife, but that it was solely and wholly directed against me, he bestowed, about eight months after, several marks of favour upon Madame de Saint-Simon.  She was continually invited to the suppers at Trianon—­an honour which had never before been granted her.  I only laughed at this.  Madame de Saint-Simon was not invited to Marly; because the husbands always, by right, accompanied their wives there, apartments being given for both.  At Trianon it was different.  Nobody was allowed to sleep there except those absolutely in attendance.  The King wished, therefore, the better to mark by this distinction that the exclusion was intended for me alone, and that my wife had no part in it.

Notwithstanding this; I persevered in my ordinary assiduity, without ever asking to be invited to Marly, and lived agreeably with my wife and my friends.  I have thought it best to finish with this subject at once—­now I must go back to my starting point.