her, than any other portion of his admirable volumes. The picture is so minute, and yet so striking, so philosophical and so entertaining, that we must dwell upon some of the traits a little longer. Madame de Maintenon, though a queen in the interior of the palace, was a private lady in public; and being of very inferior rank, after all the honors that had been conferred upon her, her position became delicate. No one would venture upon taking precedence of her, and yet it was impossible for her to assume it. With her ordinary dexterity, and in accordance with her natural character on all such occasions, she affected the humble, the obliged, the reverential, and would even retire before persons whom in her own rank she might have led. But no, her part was the extremely modest and retiring creature, whom God and the king had chosen to be sure to distinguish, all undeserving as she was of such high favor. Thus the ladies of the court, where distinction was the very breath of the place, had to leave in a corner, acting humility, the person who with a word could have driven the proudest from the only atmosphere in which a courtier of that time, male or female, thought it was possible to exist. She, who in public, was only accommodated with a stool by an artifice, in private enjoyed all the honors of the armchair,in the presence of the king, and of the ex-royal family of England; and they who know the importance attached to the chair, the intrigues that have been set on foot for a stool, and the confusion in the church about a bench for the cardinals, can alone understand how much is conveyed by this fact. This awkwardness might be one of the reasons of her shutting herself up: she was almost as unapproachable as the king himself; she paid rare visits but to a very few, and it was only a few familiars who could make good their way into her apartments. One good point, one honest quality Madame de Maintenon did possess. She never forgot or neglected the friends of her adversity. Those that were mean she raised, those that were great already she endowed with privileges that were considered the greatest boons a courtier could receive. Among the companions of her adversity was an old female servant who had adhered to her when the widow of Scarron was reduced to seek the charity of her parish. Her name was Manon, and Manon Madame Maintenon always called her, after she became Mademoiselle Balbien for the court, and a personage. Though retaining her primitive simplicity of speech and manners, and imitating the austerity of her mistress in her dress, she was a person of the utmost importance in the eyes of all those who wished to carry a point with her mistress. The Duc de Saint-Simon has condescended to give a characteristic portrait of Manon, with several anecdotes of her service; for every thing at

court is important, if it comes within the enchanted circle of power.

To a woman of De Maintenon's ambition, the declaration of her marriage must necessarily have been an object near to her heart. On two several occasions she had so far succeeded with the king that he was on the point of acknowledging her, and twice he was prevented; first, by the ardent solicitation of Louvois, and the second time, by the advice of Bossuet and Fenelon. Louvois was poisoned, and Fenelon disgraced. The Bishop of Meaux's authority with the king, the weight of his eloquence and character, and, more than all, the need of his services, prevented him from sharing the fate of the Archbishop of Cambrai. The anecdote of Louvois' resistance deserves to be quoted in a translation of the passage it gives an insight into courts.

"Many years after, Louvois, who was always well informed of what was passing in the interior of the palace, and who spared no means to procure speedy information, was told of the schemes Madame de Maintenon had on foot to get herself declared, that the king had had the weakness to consent, and that the affair was about to explode. He sent for the Archbishop of Paris to Versailles, and, immediately after the dinner, took some papers, and went to the king's apartments, and as he was used, went straight into the cabinet. The king had just risen, and was arranging his clothes. Seeing Louvois at an hour not usual with him, he demanded what brought him. 'Something of great importance that requires despatch,' said Louvois, with an air of sadness that astonished the king, who told him to send away the valets of the interior, who were waiting. They went away, it is true, but they left the doors open; so that they heard all, and saw as well by means of the mirrors. This was the great danger of the cabinets.

"When they had left, Louvois did not hesitate to tell the king what had brought him. The king was unable to deny the fact, but attempted to turn it off with some evasions that required no penetration to see through; and being pressed by the minister, he began to make for the interior cabinet, where the valets were; and thus deliver himself. But Louvois, who saw the device, threw himself on his knees before him and stopped him, drew from his side a little sword which he wore, presented the handle to the king, and begged his majesty to put him to death instantly if he persisted in declaring his marriage, in breaking his royal word, and in the eyes of all Europe covering himself with an infamy which he (Louvois) would never live to see. The king stamped and started, and bade him instantly let him go: but Louvois held him by the legs still tighter, for fear he should escape, and went on representing the horrible contrast of his crown and personal glory with the disgrace he was going to join with it, and which would eventually kill him with remorse in a word, he succeeded in getting a second promise

from the king that he never would declare his marriage. The Archbishop of Paris arrived in the evening. Louvois related to him what he had done. The courtly prelate would have been utterly incapable of such an effort, and in fact it was an action which, if properly viewed, ought to be considered sublime. Louvois at the time was all-powerful; he was passionately attached to his place, its duties and its authority; and at the same time he knew that Maintenon was supreme, and felt all the weight of her influence. He was also well aware that she was too well informed of every thing that passed not to be able very soon to trace her disappointment to the right source, and that her inextinguishable hatred would be the consequence. The archbishop, who had nothing to do but to confirm the king in the promise he had at the marriage given to both, and which had just been repeated to the minister, could not refuse his aid. He therefore spoke to the king next morning, and had no difficulty in drawing from him the renewal of his promise."

Louvois was poisoned; the archbishop was disgraced. . There appears to have existed no doubt in the mind of Saint-Simon that the disappointed woman was the mover in the first heinous affair, as she undoubtedly was in the last. When the affair was again renewed, Fenelon fell, the victim of his honesty; after which Madame de Maintenon, with that prudence which distinguished her, and to which she owed her long reign, appears to have resolved upon giving up the idea for ever. The king felt the merit of this resignation, and is said to have redoubled his attentions and repaid her by other gratifications.

It must not be supposed that the attention which the king paid either to her or any other woman, implies the ordinary meaning which we attach to gallantry. His attentions were purely selfish; they did not merely consist in formal demonstrations of respect; Louis XIV. was never known to hesitate where his own personal convenience was concerned. His hardness in this respect was extreme. At the time of his warmest attachment to his mistresses, he never regarded either the illnesses or the sufferings of any one of them whether in a condition or not to wear without extreme inconvenience the full dress of the court, it mattered not; nothing could soften the rigor of etiquette. Pregnant, ill, not recovered from confinement, it was necessary to show themselves in full court dress, to be tight-laced and adorned, ready to go to Flanders or even farther, -to dance, sit up, join the fêtes, eat, drink, and be merry,-to be afraid of nothing, neither to suffer, or appear to suffer, from heat, cold, air, dust, and all this at the exact hour, and at the appointed place, without deranging or delaying the royal mechanism for one minute. He always travelled

*These Memoirs would furnish us with an abundance of instances in

with his carriage full of women, his mistresses; afterwards his bastards, his daughter-in-law, and sometimes the Duchess of Orleans, and other ladies when there was room. In this carriage there was always great store of eatables, meat, pastry, and fruits; and though he never ate any thing himself between his meals, it was his pleasure that the ladies should eat. He had not gone a mile before the viands were produced; and appetite or not, ill or well, the poor women were bound to stuff themselves to repletion. He was affronted at want of appetite, and equally offended at an ungraceful mode of eating, and never failed to show his displeasure with a good deal of bitterness. He was equally inattentive to the feelings of his companions in every other respect; and a dismally ludicrous story is told of the sufferings of the Duchess de Chevreuse, which we could not repeat. The king was partial to air, and never feeling fatigue, heat or cold, always travelled with the glasses down, and was offended at any lady drawing the curtain confirmation of the truth of this statement. We shall satisfy our readers by quoting one, and not to interrupt the thread of our observations, will throw it into a note.

"The Duchess of Burgundy was pregnant: she suffered very much while in that state. The king wished to go to Fontainebleau, contrary to his usual custom, at the beginning of spring, and had intimated his intention. He wished to make his journeys to Marly in the interim. His granddaughter amused him exceedingly; he could not dispense with her; but so much moving about did not at all agree with a person in her state. Madame de Maintenon became uneasy at it, and Fagon (the physician) ventured to hint his opinion of its danger. The king, accustomed to put no constraint upon himself, and spoiled by having seen his mistresses travel about when they were pregnant, or scarcely recovered from confinement, and always full dressed, was annoyed at this. The representations as to the journeys to Marly chagrined him, without, however, making him change his purpose. He merely twice deferred his departure, which had been fixed for the day after, and only went thither on the Tuesday of the week following, in spite of every thing that could be said or done to dissuade him from it, or to obtain his permission for the princess to remain at Versailles.

"On the Saturday following, while the king was walking after mass, and amusing himself at the carp pond, between the chateau and the gardens, we saw the Duchess de Lude coming out on foot, and quite alone; there was no lady at the time with the king - a circumstance rather unusual in the morning. Conceiving that she had something pressing to communicate to him, he went to meet her; and when he was at some little distance, his attendants halted, and left him to speak to her alone. The tête-à-tête was of short duration. The Duchess returned to the chateau, and the king came back towards us, and almost close to the carp pond, without saying a word. Every one of us saw what was the matter, but no one ventured to speak. At last the king, having reached the side of the pond, looked round at the principal persons of his suite, and without addressing himself to any one in particular, uttered, in a tone of ill humor, these words 'The Duchess of Burgundy has hurt herself.' Immediately M. de Larochefoucauld began to make exclamations, and M. M. de Bouillon, the

against the sun; but the greatest crime of all was to be taken ill, or to faint, it was never forgiven. This of course was horrible slavery, and yet all repaid by the honor of riding in the king's coach. Madame de Maintenon contrived to avoid this disagreeable distinction. Under the pretence of decorum, she invariably started before him; and wherever it was arranged to stop, there he found her established precisely in the order and manner of Versailles. There were many other manifestations of selfishness from which it was impossible for her to escape. In whatever condition of health she might be, she was forced to go to Marly, frequently when in a state in which no other man would have moved a seryant; and once she travelled to Fontainebleau at a time when her attendants expected her to die on the road. Whatever might be her state of health, the king visited her at his usual hour, and transacted all he had arranged, though perhaps she was in bed and in a fever. The king, as has been observed, was fond of air,

Duke de Tresmes, and the Marshal de Barfleur, to repeat them in a lower tone; after which M. de Larochefoucald, repeating his exclamations, said that it was the greatest misfortune that could happen, as having already met with several disappointments, the duchess might perhaps never have any more children. The king, who had hitherto not spoken a word, all at once cut short his lamentations in a burst of anger. Even should that be the case,' said he, 'what is it to me? Has she not a son already? and if he were to die, is the Duke de Berri not of age to marry and have children? What does it signify to me whether my successor comes from the one or the other? Are they not both my grandsons?' And after a short pause he continued, impetuously, 'Thank God! the duchess's misfortune is over, since it was to be so; I shall no longer be thwarted in my journeys and in every thing I wish to do by the representations of doctors and the chattering of matrons. I will go and I will come according to my own fancy, and you will leave me in peace.' A silence, in which you might have heard an ant move, succeeded to this sally. Our eyes were cast down; we scarcely ventured to breathe; every one remained stupefied: even the domestics and the gardeners continued motionless. This silence lasted upwards of a quarter of an hour. "The king, leaning on the balustrade, was the first to break it, by some remark upon one of the carp; no one answered him. Afterwards he spoke to some of the domestics about the carp, but the conversation was not kept up as usual. No other subject was talked of but the carp; it completely languished, and the king went away some time afterwards. No sooner was he out of sight and we ventured to look at each other, than the meeting of our eyes said every thing. Every one who happened to be there became for the moment the confident of each other's thoughts. We wondered, we were astonished, we were grieved, we shrugged our shoulders. Notwithstanding the time that has now elapsed since this scene took place, it is constantly before my eyes. M. de Larochefoucauld was furious, and on this occasion not without cause; the first écuyer was almost frightened to death; and as for myself I examined every personage with eyes and ears; and I was not sorry to find the opinion confirmed which I had long entertained that the king loved and regarded no one but himself, and was to himself his last end."