Having myself to place the three daughters of one of my relatives, I went to see the noble confessor at his pavilion of Belleville.  He received me with the most marked distinction, and was lavish in acts of gratitude for all the benefits of the King.

As he crossed his salon, in order to accompany me and escort me out, he let his white handkerchief fall; three bishops at once flung themselves upon it, and there was a struggle as to who should pick it up to give it back to him.

I related to the King what I had seen.  He said to me:  “These prelates honour my confessor, looking upon him as a second me.”  In fact, the sins of the King could only throw his confessor into relief and add to his merit.

CHAPTER XVI.

Mademoiselle de Fontanges.—­The Pavilions of the Garden of Flora.—­Rapid Triumph of the Favourite.—­Her Retreat to Val-de-grace.—­Her Death.

Madame de Maintenon was already forty-four years old, and appeared to be only thirty.  This freshness, that she owed either to painstaking care or to her happy and quite peculiar constitution, gave her that air of youth which fascinated the eyes of the courtiers and those of the monarch himself.  I wished one day to annoy her by bringing the conversation on this subject, which could not be diverting to her.  I began by putting the question generally, and I then named several of our superannuated beauties who still fluttered in the smiling gardens of Flora without having the youth of butterflies.

“There are butterflies of every age and colour in the gardens of Flora,” said she, catching the ball on the rebound.  “There are presumptuous ones, whom the first breath of the zephyr despoils of their plumage and discolours; others, more reserved and less frivolous, keep their glamour and prestige for a much longer time.  For the rest, the latter seem to me to rejoice without being vain in their advantages.  And at bottom, what should any insect gain by being proud?”

“Very little,” I answered her, “since being dressed as a butterfly does not prevent one from being an insect, and the best sustained preservation lasts at most till the day after to-morrow.”

The King entered.  I started speaking of a young person, extremely beautiful, who had just appeared at Court, and would eclipse, in my opinion, all who had shone there before her.

“What do you call her?” asked his Majesty.  “To what family does she belong?”

“She comes from the provinces,” I continued, “just like silk, silver, and gold.  Her parents desire to place her among the maids of honour of the Queen.  Her name is Fontanges, and God has never made anything so beautiful.”

As I said these words I watched the face of the Marquise.  She listened to this portrayal with attention, but without appearing moved by it, such is her power of suppressing her natural feeling.  The King only added these words: