Next morning at daybreak we drove on, and the day after we reached Fontevrault.  The Abbess, accompanied by her entire community, came to welcome us at the main gate, and her surpliced chaplains offered me holy water.

After rest and refreshment, we made a detailed survey of her little empire, and everywhere observed traces of her good management and tact.  Rules had been made more lenient, while not relaxed; the revenues had increased; everywhere embellishments, contentment, and well-being were noticeable.

After praising the Abbess as she deserved, we talked a little about the Talmont principality.  My sister was inconsolable.  The Tremouilles had come into property which restored their shattered fortunes; the principality was no longer for sale; all thought of securing it must be given up.

Strange to say, I at once felt consoled by such news.  Rightly to explain this feeling, I ought, perhaps, to make an avowal.  A grand and brilliant title had indeed ever been the object of my ambition; but I thought that I deserved such a distinction personally, for my own sake, and I was always wishing that my august friend would create a title specially in my favour.  I had often hinted at such a thing in various ways, and full as he is of wit and penetration, he always listened to my covert suggestions, and was perfectly aware of my desire.  And yet, magnificently generous as any mortal well could be, he never granted my wish.  Any one else but myself would have been tired, disheartened even; but at Court one must never be discouraged nor give up the game.  The atmosphere is rife with vicissitude and change.  Monotony would seem to have made there its home; yet no day is quite like another.  What one hopes for is too long in coming; and what one never foresees on, a sudden comes to pass.

We took counsel together as to the best thing to be done.  Madame de Thianges said to me:  “My dear Athenais, you have the elegance of the Mortemarts, the fine perception and ready wit that distinguishes them, but strangely enough you have not their energy, nor the firm will necessary for the conduct of weighty matters.  The King does not treat you like a great friend, like a distinguished friend, like the mother of his son, the Duc du Maine; he treats you like a province that he has conquered, on which he levies tax after tax; that is all.  Pray recollect, my sister, that for ten years you have played a leading part on the grand stage.  Your beauty, to my surprise, has been preserved to you, notwithstanding your numerous confinements and the fatigues of your position.  Profit by the present juncture, and do not let the chance slip.  You must write to the King, and on some pretext or other, ask for another week’s leave.  You must tell him plainly that you have been marquise long enough, and that the moment has come at last for you to have the ‘imperiale’,

[The distinctive mark of duchesses was the ‘imperiale’; that is, a rich and costly hammer-cloth of embroidered velvet, edged with gold, which covered the roofs of ducal equipages.—­Editor’s note.]