First among the mistresses of Louis XIV. was Mlle. de La Valliere, whom Sainte-Beuve mentions as the personification of the ideal of a lover, combining disinterestedness, fidelity, unique and delicate tenderness with a touching and sincere kindness.  When, at the age of seventeen, she was presented at court, the king immediately selected her as one of his victims.  Her beauty was so striking, of such an exquisitely tender type, that no woman actually rivalled her as queen of beauty.  Distinguished by blond hair, dark blue eyes, a most sympathetic voice, and a complexion of rare whiteness mingled with red, she was guileless, animated, gentle, modest, graceful, unaffected, and ingenuous; although slightly lame, she was, by everyone, considered charming.

Mlle. de La Valliere was the mother of several children of whom Louis XIV. was the father.  On realizing that she had rivals in the favor of the sovereign, she fled several times from the Tuileries to the convent; on her second return, the king, about to go to battle, recognized his daughter by her, whom he made a duchess.  Remorse overcame the mistress so deeply that she, for the third and final time, left court.  Especially on the rise to power of Mme. de Montespan was she painfully humiliated, suffering the most intense pangs of conscience.  The evening before her final departure to the convent, she dined with Mme. de Montespan, to drink “the cup to the dregs and to enjoy the rejection of the world even to the last remains of its bitterness.”

Guizot describes this period most vividly:  “When Mme. de Montespan began to supplant her in the king’s favor, the grief of Mlle. de La Valliere was so great that she thought she would die of it.  Then she turned to God, penitent and in despair; twice she sought refuge in a convent at Chaillot.  On leaving, she sent word to the king:  ’After having lost the honor of your good graces I would have left the court sooner, if I could have prevailed upon myself never to see you again; but that weakness was so strong in me that hardly now am I capable of sacrificing it to God.  After having given you all my youth, the remainder of my life is not too much for the care of my salvation.’” The king still clung to her.  “He sent M. Colbert to beg her earnestly to come to Versailles that he might speak with her.  M. Colbert escorted her thither and the king conversed for an hour with her and wept bitterly.  Mme. de Montespan was there to meet her, with open arms and tears in her eyes.”  “It is all incomprehensible,” adds Mme. de Sevigne; “some say that she will remain at Versailles and at court, others that she will return to Chaillot; we shall see.”