“What need has she of so many preliminary cautions,” added the Marquise, “if it is to you that she desires to sell it?  Her choice guarantees the consent of the princess; your name will make everything easy.”

“I reason quite otherwise, Madame la Marquise,” replied the former governess of the princes; “the Queen may have her ideas.  It is right and fitting to find out first her intention and wishes.”

“Madame, madame,” said my sister then, “everything has been sufficiently considered, and even approved of.  You will be the purchaser; you desire to buy, it is to you that one desires to sell.”

Madame de Maintenon began to laugh, and besought the Marquise to believe that she had neither the desire nor the money for that object.

“Money,” answered my sister, “will cause you no trouble on this occasion.  Money has been coined in pour family.”

[Constant d’Aubigne, father of Madame de Maintenon, in his wild youth, was said to have taken refuge in a den of comers.—­Ed. Note]

Madame de Maintenon, profoundly moved, said to the Marquise: 

“I thought, madame, that I had come to see Madame de Montespan, to look at her stuffs from the seraglio, and not to receive insults.  All your teasing affects me, because up to to-day I believed in your kindly feeling.  It has been made clear to me now that I must put up with this loss; but, whatever be your injustice towards me, I will not depart from my customs or from my element.  The superintendence of the Queen’s Council is for sale, or it is not; either way, it is all the same to me.  I have never made any claim to this office, and I never shall.”

These words, of which I perceived the sincerity, touched me.  I made some trifling excuses to the lady in waiting, and, tired of all these insignificant mysteries, I went and took the anonymous letter from my bureau and showed it to the governess.

She read it thoughtfully.  After having read it, she assured me that this script was a riddle to her.

Madame de Maintenon, on leaving us, made quite a deep courtesy to my sister, which caused me pain, preserving an icy gravity and exaggerating her salutation and her courtesy.

When we were alone, I confessed to the Marquise de Thianges that her words had passed all bounds, and that she could have reached her end by other means.

“I cannot endure that woman,” she answered.  “She knows that you have made her, that without you she would be languishing still in her little apartment in the Maree; and when for more than a year she sees you neglected by the King and almost deserted, she abandons you to your destiny, and does not condescend to offer you any consolation.  I have mortified her; I do not repent of it in the least, and every time that I come across her I shall permit myself that gratification.

“What is she thinking of at her age; with her pretensions to a fine figure, an ethereal carriage, and beauty?  And yet it must be admitted that her complexion is not made up.  She has the sheen of the lily mingled with that of the rose, and her eyes exhibit a smiling vivacity which leaves our great coquettes of the day far behind!”