At the bottom of his soul, and in the innermost sanctuary of his conscience, Bossuet felt his weakness; he saw the apostolic severance from the world, the apostolic zeal and fervor required for the holy crusade he had undertaken.  “Your Majesty has given your promise to God and the world,” he wrote to Louis XIV. in, ignorance of the secret correspondence still kept up between the king and Madame de Montespan.  “I have been to see her,” added the prelate.  “I find her pretty calm; she occupies herself a great deal in good works.  I spoke to her as well as to you the words in which God commands us to give Him our whole heart; they caused her to shed many tears; may it please God to fix these truths in the bottom of both your hearts, and accomplish His work, in order that so many tears, so much violence, so many strains that you have put upon yourselves, may not be fruitless.”

The king was on the road back to Versailles; Madame de Montespan was to return thither also, her duties required her to do so, it was said; Bossuet heard of it; he did not for a single instant delude himself as to the emptiness of the king’s promises and of his own hopes.  He determined, however, to visit the king at Luzarches.  Louis XIV. gave him no time to speak.

“Do not say a word to me, sir,” said he, not without blushing, do not say a word; I have given my orders, they will have to be executed.”  Bossuet held his tongue.  “He had tried every thrust; had acted like a pontiff of the earliest times, with a freedom worthy of the earliest ages and the earliest bishops of the Church,” says St. Simon.  He saw the inutility of his efforts; henceforth, prudence and courtly behavior put a seal upon his lips.  It was the time of the great king’s omnipotence and highest splendor, the time when nobody withstood his wishes.  The great Mademoiselle had just attempted to show her independence:  tired of not being married, with a curse on the greatness which kept her astrand, she had made up her mind to a love-match.  “Guess it in four, guess it in ten, guess it in a hundred,” wrote Madame de Sevigne to Madame de Coulanges:  “you are not near it; well, then, you must be told.  M. de Lauzun is to marry on Sunday at the Louvre, with the king’s permission, mademoiselle . . . mademoiselle de . .. mademoiselle, guess the name . . . he is to marry Mademoiselle, my word! upon my word! my sacred word!  Mademoiselle, the great Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle daughter of the late Monsieur, Mademoiselle grand-daughter of Henry IV., Mademoiselle d’Eu, Mademoiselle de Dombes, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Mademoiselle d’ Orleans, Mademoiselle, cousin-german to the king, Mademoiselle destined to the throne, Mademoiselle, the only match in France who would have been worthy of Monsieur!” The astonishment was somewhat premature; Mademoiselle did not espouse Lauzun just then, the king broke off the marriage.  “I will make you so great,” he said to Lauzun, “that you shall have no cause