The reputation made by the young Mme. Scarron gained her many influential friends, especially among court people.  At the death of her husband, in 1660, to avoid trouble with his family, she renounced the marriage dowry of twenty-four thousand livres.  Her friends procured her a pension of two thousand livres from the queen.  Thus freed from care, she lived according to her inclination, which tended toward pleasing and doing good; taking good cheer and her services voluntarily and unaffectedly to all families, she gradually made herself a necessity among them—­thus she laid the foundation of her future greatness.  She was received by the best families, grew in favor everywhere, and even won over all her enemies.  Modest, complaisant, promptly and readily rendering a favor, prudent, practical and virtuous, her one desire was to make friends, not so much for the purpose of using them, but because she realized that a person in humble circumstances cannot have too many friends.

Her portrait as a widow is admirably drawn by M. Saint-Amand:  “Mme. Scarron seeks esteem, not love.  To please while remaining virtuous, to endure, if need be, privations and even poverty, but to win the reputation of a strong character, to deserve the sympathy and approbation of honest persons—­such is the direction of all her efforts.  Well dressed, though very simply; discreet and modest, intelligent and distingue, with that patrician elegance which luxury cannot create, but which is inborn and comes by nature only; pious, with a sincere and gentle piety; less occupied with herself than with others; talking well and—­what is much rarer—­knowing how to listen; taking an interest in the joys and sorrows of her friends, and skilful in amusing and consoling them—­she is justly regarded as one of the most amiable as well as one of the superior women in Paris.  Economical and simple in her tastes, she makes her accounts balance perfectly, thanks to an annual pension of two thousand livres granted her by Queen Anne of Austria.”

When Mme. Scarron was about to leave Paris because of lack of funds and the loss of her pension, after the death of Queen Anne, her friend Mme. de Montespan, the king’s mistress, interfered in her behalf and had the pension renewed, thus inadvertently paving the way for her own downfall.  Three years later Mme. Scarron was established in an isolated house near Paris, where she received the natural children of Louis XIV. and Mme. de Montespan, as they arrived, in quick succession, in 1669, 1670, 1672, 1673, and 1674.  There, acting as governess, she hid them from the world.  This is the only blemish upon the fair record of her life.  It is maintained by her detractors that a virtuous woman would not have undertaken the education of the doubly adulterous children of Louis XIV. (thus, in a way, encouraging adultery), and that she would have given up her charge upon the first proposals of love.