The prince’s decision was definite, and as his character was, there was no wavering.  I wrote to him immediately to express my lively gratitude, and we considered, the Marquise and I, as to the intermediary to whom we could entrust the unsavoury commission of approaching the Marquis de Montespan.  He hated all my family from his having obtained no satisfaction from it for his wrath.  We begged the Chancellor Hyde, a personage of importance, to be good enough to accept this mission; he saw no reason to refuse it, and, after ten or eleven days, he received the following reply, with which he was moderately amused: 

Chateau saint Elix . . . .  At the world’s end.

I am sensible, my Lord, as I should be, of the honour which you have wished to do me, whilst, notwithstanding, permit me to consider it strange that a man of your importance has cared to meddle in such a negotiation.  His Majesty the King of France did not consult me when he wished to make my wife his mistress; it is somewhat remarkable that so great a prince expects my intervention today to recompense conduct that I have disapproved, that I disapprove, and shall disapprove to my last breath.  His Majesty has got eight or ten children from my wife without saying a word to me about it; this monarch can surely, therefore, make her a present of a duchy without summoning me to his assistance.  According to all laws, human and divine, the King ought to punish Madame de Montespan, and, instead of censuring her, he wishes to make her a duchess! . . .  Let him make her a princess, even a highness, if he likes; he has all the power in his hands.  I am only a twig; he is an oak.

If madame is fostering ambition, mine has been satisfied for forty years; I was born a marquis; a marquis—­apart from some unforeseen catastrophe—­I will die; and Madame la Marquise, as long as she does not alter her conduct, has no need to alter her degree.

I will, however, waive my severity, if M. le Duc du Maine will intervene for his mother, and call me his father, however it may be.  I am none the less sensible, my lord, of the honour of your acquaintance, and since you form one of the society of Madame la Marquise, endeavour to release yourself from her charms, for she can be an enchantress when she likes....  It is true that, from what they tell me, you were not quite king in your England.

I am, from out my exile (almost as voluntary as yours), the most obliged and grateful of your servants,

De Gondrin Montespan.

The Marquise de Thianges felt a certain irritation at the reading of this letter; she offered all our excuses for it to the English Chancellor, and said to me:  “I begin to fear that the King of Versailles is not acting with good faith towards you, when he makes your advancement depend on the Marquis de Montespan; it is as though he were giving you a duchy in the moon.”