“Her gratitude was not less lively and sincere; she handed a considerable sum to the Benedictines of Fontevrault, charging them to continue their good work and charity.

“The reverend Prior, reflecting that his hideous inmate came of a great family, and of a family of great property, resolved to procure it as a wife for his nephew.  He sounded the young man, who looked fixedly at his future bride, and avowed that he was satisfied.

“She is a good Christian,” he replied to his uncle, since you have baptised her here.  She is of a good family, since Honorinde has recognised her.  There are many as ugly as she is to be seen who still find husbands.  I will put a pretty mask on her, and the mask will give me sufficient illusion.  Benedicte, so far as she goes, is well-made; I hope to have fine children who will talk.

“The Prior commenced by marrying them; he then confided in Honorinde, who, not daring to noise abroad this existence, was compelled to submit to what had been done.

“The marriage of the young she-monster was not happy.  She bit her husband from morning to night.  She did not know how to sit at table, and would only eat out of a trough.  She needed neither an armchair, a sofa, nor a couch; she stretched herself out on the sand or on the pavement.

“Her husband, in despair, demanded the nullification of his marriage; and as the courts did not proceed fast enough for his impatience, he killed his companion, Benedicte, with a pistol-shot, at the moment when she was biting and tearing him before witnesses.

“Honorinde had her buried at Fontevrault, and over her tomb, at the end of the year, she built a convent, to which her immense property was given, where she retired herself as a simple nun, and of which she was appointed first abbess by the Pope who reigned at the time.

“There, madame,” added the King, “is the somewhat singular origin of the illustrious abbey which your sister rules with such eclat.  You must have remarked the boar’s head, perfectly imitated in sculpture, in the dome; that mask is the speaking history of the noble community of Fontevrault, where more than a hundred Benedictine monks obey an abbess.”

CHAPTER XI.

Fine Couples Make Fine Children.—­The Dauphine of Bavaria.—­She
Displeases Madame de Montespan.—­First Debut Relating to Madame de
Maintenon, Appointed Lady-in-waiting.—­Conversation between the Two
Marquises.

The King, in his moments of effusion and abandonment (then so full of pleasantness), had said more than once:  “If I have any physical beauty, I owe it to the Queen, my mother; if my daughters have any beauty, they owe it to me:  it is only fine couples who get fine children.”

When I saw him decided upon marrying Monseigneur le Dauphin, I reminded him of his maxim.  He fell to smiling, and answered me:  “Chance, too, sometimes works its miracles.  My choice for my son is a decided thing; my politics come before my taste, and I have asked for the daughter of the Elector of Bavaria, whose portrait I will show you.  She is not beautiful, like you; she is prettier than Benedicte, and I hope that she will not bite Monseigneur le Dauphin in her capricious transports.”