The Fermier-general had a nephew named Lenorman d’Etioles, a young man of Amiable character, and with the feelings and habits of a gentleman.  This was the reputed heir of the immense wealth of the old Fermier-general, according to the established laws, though Jeanne had on her side also some claims to a share of the property.  A very simple means was however devised to prevent all after litigation, namely, by arranging a marriage between the two young people.  Jeanne, as we have already seen, loved the king, and she married d’Etioles without her feelings in this respect undergoing any change.  Versailles was her horizon, the goal to which she aspired.  D’Etioles, it is said, became deeply enamored of his young bride; but this passion, which amounted almost to fanaticism, never touched her heart.  To use her own words, she “accepted him with resignation, as a misfortune which was not to last long.”

The hotel of the new-married couple was organized upon a lordly footing; the best society in Paris was there to be found, for all those whose company was worth having deserted the salons of the fashionable world for those of Madame d’Etioles.  Never until then had such a lavish display of luxury been seen.  The young bride hoped by these means to make a noise at court, and thus pique the curiosity of the king.  The days passed in fetes and entertainments of every kind.  The celebrated comedians of the day, the popular poets, artists, foreigners of distinction, all had ready access to the splendid mansion of Lenorman d’Etioles, of which the mistress was the life and ornament; every one visited there, in short, except the king.

Ever since the celebrated reunions of the Hotel de Rambouillet, there have always been in France a succession of circles of beaux esprits, presided over by some queen of fashion.  Louis XIV. hated these reunions, saying that the court was spread abroad into all [illegible] hotels of Paris.  In fact, for many, the [illegible ] of the Duchesse de Main or of the [illegible ]ise de Lambert, of Madame de Tencin [illegible] Madame Geoffrin, possessed far greater [illegible ]ons than the already superannuated [illegible ] of Versailles.  The French Revolution [illegible ] its rise in these very circles, for in them they laughed a little at the great powers of the earth, and there philosophy and liberty were allowed elbow-room.  Thus, at Madame d’Etioles’ might be seen old Fontenelle, who believed in nothing, not even in his own heart; Voltaire, still young, and armed with the keen weapons of his ready wit, prepared to make war upon those whose reign was of this world, above all upon the Jesuits; Montesquieu and Maupertuis, born skeptics and mockers; along with many others of a kindred spirit who had beheld the decline of royalty and religion, when Louis XIV., in the latter years of his reign, had permitted Scarron’s widow to make religion fashionable, by cloaking France with the mask of hypocritical