“Their cure lies in their own hands.”

“That is true.  And yet my heart softens for them.”

Pere la Chaise and the bishop shook their heads.  Nature had made them both kind and charitable men, but the heart turns to flint when the blessing of religion is changed to the curse of sect.

“You would befriend God’s enemies then?”

“No, no; not if they are indeed so.”

“Can you doubt it?  Is it possible that your heart still turns towards the heresy of your youth?”

“No, father; but it is not in nature to forget that my father and my grandfather—­”

“Nay, they have answered for their own sins.  Is it possible that the Church has been mistaken in you?  Do you then refuse the first favour which she asks of you?  You would accept her aid, and yet you would give none in return.”

Madame de Maintenon rose with the air of one who has made her resolution.  “You are wiser than I,” said she, “and to you have been committed the interests of the Church.  I will do what you advise.”

“You promise it?”

“I do.”

Her two visitors threw up their hands together.  “It is a blessed day,” they cried, “and generations yet unborn will learn to deem it so.”

She sat half stunned by the prospect which was opening out in front of her.  Ambitious she had, as the Jesuit had surmised, always been—­ ambitious for the power which would enable her to leave the world better than she found it.  And this ambition she had already to some extent been able to satisfy, for more than once she had swayed both king and kingdom.  But to marry the king—­to marry the man for whom she would gladly lay down her life, whom in the depths of her heart she loved in as pure and as noble a fashion as woman ever yet loved man—­that was indeed a thing above her utmost hopes.  She knew her own mind, and she knew his.  Once his wife, she could hold him to good, and keep every evil influence away from him.  She was sure of it.  She should be no weak Maria Theresa, but rather, as the priest had said, a new Jeanne d’Arc, come to lead France and France’s king into better ways.  And if, to gain this aim, she had to harden her heart against the Huguenots, at least the fault, if there were one, lay with those who made this condition rather than with herself.  The king’s wife!  The heart of the woman and the soul of the enthusiast both leaped at the thought.

But close at the heels of her joy there came a sudden revulsion to doubt and despondency.  Was not all this fine prospect a mere day-dream? and how could these men be so sure that they held the king in the hollow of their hand?  The Jesuit read the fears which dulled the sparkle of her eyes, and answered her thoughts before she had time to put them into words.

“The Church redeems its pledges swiftly,” said he.  “And you, my daughter, you must be as prompt when your own turn comes.”