The accouchements of Madame de Montespan were public.  Her circle became the centre of the Court, of the amusements, of the hopes and of the fears of ministers and the generals, and the humiliation of all France.  It was also the centre of wit, and of a kind so peculiar, so delicate, and so subtle, but always so natural and so agreeable, that it made itself distinguished by its special character.

Madame de Montespan was cross, capricious, ill-tempered, and of a haughtiness in everything which, readied to the clouds, and from the effects of which nobody, not even the King, was exempt.  The courtiers avoided passing under her windows, above all when the King was with her.  They used to say it was equivalent to being put to the sword, and this phrase became proverbial at the Court.  It is true that she spared nobody, often without other design than to divert the King; and as she had infinite wit and sharp pleasantry, nothing was more dangerous than the ridicule she, better than anybody, could cast on all.  With that she loved her family and her relatives, and did not fail to serve people for whom she conceived friendship.  The Queen endured with difficulty her haughtiness—­very different from the respect and measure with which she had been treated by the Duchesse de la Valliere, whom she always loved; whereas of Madame de Montespan she would say, “That strumpet will cause my death.”  The retirement, the austere penitence, and the pious end of Madame de Montespan have been already described.

During her reign she did not fail to have causes for jealousy.  There was Mademoiselle de Fontange, who pleased the King sufficiently to become his mistress.  But she had no intellect, and without that it was impossible to maintain supremacy over the King.  Her early death quickly put an end to this amour.  Then there was Madame de Soubise, who, by the infamous connivance of her husband, prostituted herself to the King, and thus secured all sorts of advantages for that husband, for herself, and for her children.  The love of the King for her continued until her death, although for many years before that he had ceased to see her in private.  Then there was the beautiful Ludre, demoiselle of Lorraine, and maid of honour to Madame, who was openly loved for a moment.  But this amour was a flash of lightning, and Madame de Montespan remained triumphant.

Let us now pass to another kind of amour which astonished all the world as much as the other had scandalised it, and which the King carried with him to the tomb.  Who does not already recognise the celebrated Francoise d’Aubigne, Marquise de Maintenon, whose permanent reign did not last less than thirty-two years?