It does not seem that this hideous marriage provoked scandal.  In fact, it made the fortune of Mademoiselle d’Aubigne.  She now presided at entertainments which were the gossip of the city, and to which stupid dukes aspired in vain; for Scarron would never have a dull man at his table, not even if he were loaded with diamonds and could trace his pedigree to the paladins of Charlemagne.  But by presiding at parties made up of the elite of the fashionable and cultivated society of Paris, this ambitious woman became acquainted with those who had influence at court; so that when her husband died, and she was cut off from his life-pension and reduced to poverty, she was recommended to Madame de Montespan, the King’s mistress, as the governess of her children.  It was a judicious appointment.  Madame Scarron was then thirty-four, in the pride of womanly grace and dignity, with rare intellectual gifts and accomplishments.  There is no education more effective than that acquired by constant intercourse with learned and witty people.  Even the dinner-table is no bad school for one naturally bright and amiable.  There is more to be learned from conversation than from books.  The living voice is a great educator.

Madame Scarron, on the death of her husband, was already a queen of society.  As the governess of Montespan’s children,—­which was a great position, since it introduced her to the notice of the King himself, the fountain of all honor and promotion,—­her habits of life were somewhat changed.  Life became more sombre by the irksome duties of educating unruly children, and the forced retirement to which she was necessarily subjected.  She could have lived without this preferment, since the pension of her husband was restored to her, and could have made her salon the resort of the best society.  But she had deeper designs.  Not to be the queen of a fashionable circle did she now aspire, but to be the leader of a court.

But this aim she was obliged to hide.  It could only be compassed by transcendent tact, prudence, patience, and good sense, all of which qualities she possessed in an eminent degree.  It was necessary to gain the confidence of an imperious and jealous mistress—­which was only to be done by the most humble assiduities—­before she could undermine her in the affections of the King.  She had also to gain his respect and admiration without allowing any improper intimacy.  She had to disarm jealousy and win confidence; to be as humble in address as she was elegant in manners, and win a selfish man from pleasure by the richness of her conversation and the severity of her own morals.