“The Kings of Europe,” said the prince, white with agitation and anger, “have not yet laid down the law to me in my palace; you shall not make me submit to yours, madame.  The person whom, for far too long, you have been offending and humiliating before my eyes, has ancestors who yield in nothing to your forefathers, and if you have introduced her to this palace, you have introduced here goodness, sweetness, talent, and virtue itself.  This enemy, whom you defame in every quarter, and who every day excuses and justifies you, will abide near this throne, which her fathers have defended and which her good counsel now defends.  In sending you today from a Court where your presence is without motive and pretext, I wished to keep from your knowledge, and in kindness withdraw from your eyes an event likely to irritate you, since everything irritates you.  Stay, madame, stay, since great catastrophes appeal to and amuse you; after to-morrow you will be more than ever a supernumerary in this chateau.”

At these words I realised that it was a question of the public triumph of my rival.  All my firmness vanished; my heart was, as it were, distorted with the most rapid palpitations.  I felt an icy coldness run through my veins, and I fell unconscious upon my carpet.

My woman cameo to bring me help, and when my senses returned, I heard the King saying to my intendant:  “All this wearies me beyond endurance; she must go this very day.”

“Yes, I will go,” I cried, seizing a dessert-knife which was on my bureau.  I rushed forward with a mechanical movement upon my little Comte de Toulouse, whom I snatched from the hands of his father, and I was on the verge of sacrificing this child.

I shudder every time I think of that terrible and desperate scene.  But reason had left me; sorrow filled my soul; I was no longer myself.  My reader must be penetrated by my misfortune and have compassion on me.

Madame de Maintenon, informed probably of this storm, arrived and suddenly showed herself.  To rush forward, snatch away the dagger and my child was but one movement for her.  Her tears coursed in abundance; and the King, leaning on the marble of my chimney-piece, shed tears and seemed to feel a sort of suffocation.

My women had removed my children.  My intendant alone had remained in the deep embrasure of a shutter; the poor man had affliction and terror painted on his face.  Madame de Maintenon had slightly wounded herself in seizing my knife.  I saw her tearing her handkerchief, putting on lavender water in order to moisten the bandage.  As she left me she took my hand with an air of kindness, and her tears began again.

The King, seeing her go out, retired without addressing me a word.  I might call as much as I would; he did not return.

Until nightfall I seemed to be in a state of paralysis.  My arms were like lead; my will could no longer stir them.  I was distressed at first, and then I thanked God, who was delivering me from the torments of existence.  All night my body and soul moved in the torrent and waves of a fever handed over to phantoms; I saw in turn the smiling plains of Paradise and the dire domain of Hell.  My children, covered with wounds, asked me for pardon, kneeling before me; and Madame de Maintenon, one mass of blood, reproached me for having killed her.