“I am scarcely, fond of Madame de Maintenon,” said I to Madame de Richelieu, “but I like her answer exceedingly.  Madame is one of those great hermaphrodite bodies which the two sexes recognise and repulse at the same time.  She is an aggressive personage, whom her hideous face makes one associate naturally, with mastiffs; she is surly, like them, and, like them, she exposes herself to the blows of a stick.  It makes very little difference to me if she hears from you the portrait I have just made of her; you can tell her, and I shall certainly not give you the lie.”

Monsieur, having come some days afterwards to the King, complained of Madame de Maintenon, who, he said, had given offence to his wife.

“You have just made a great mistake,” said the King; “you who pride yourself on speaking your tongue so well, and I am going to put you right.  This is how you ought rather to have expressed yourself:  ’I complain of Madame de Maintenon, who, by ambiguous words, has given offence, or wished to give offence to my wife.’”

Monsieur made up his mind to laugh, and said no more of it.

CHAPTER XXI.

The Marquis de Lauzun at Liberty.—­His Conduct to His Wife.—­Recovery of Mademoiselle.

Mademoiselle, having by means of her donations to the Duc du Maine obtained, at first, the release, and subsequently the entire liberty of Lauzun, wished to go to meet him and to receive him in a superb carriage with six horses.  The King had her informed secretly that she should manage matters with more moderation; and the King only spoke so because he was better informed than any one of the ungrateful aversion of Lauzun to Mademoiselle.  No one wished to open her eyes, for she had refused to see; time itself had to instruct her, and time, which wears wings, arrived at that result quickly enough.

M. de Lauzun was, beyond gainsaying, a man of feeling and courage, but he nourished in his heart a limitless ambition, and his head, subject to whims and caprices, would not suffer him to follow methodically a fixed plan of conduct.  The King had just pardoned him as a favour to his cousin; but, knowing him well, he was not at all fond of him.  They had disposed of his office of Captain of the Guards and of the other command of the ‘Becs de Corbins’.  It was decided that Lauzun should not return to his employment; but his Majesty charged Monsieur Colbert to make good to him the amount and to add to it the arrears.

These different sums, added together, formed a capital of nine hundred and eighty thousand francs, which was paid at once in notes on the treasury, which were equal in value to ready cash.  On news of this, he broke into the most violent rage possible; he was tempted to throw these notes into the fire.  It was his offices which he wanted, and not these sums, with which he could do nothing.

The King received him with an easy, kind air; he, always a flatterer with his lips, cast himself ten times on his knees before the prince, and gained nothing by all these demonstrations.  He went to rejoin Mademoiselle on the following day at Choisy, and dared to scold her for having constructed and even bought this pretty pleasure-house.