“Ah, madame, what is it you suggest!” the lady in waiting replied to me, almost taking offence.  “I have never been eccentric or singular with any one in the world, and you want me to begin with my King!  It cannot be, I assure you!  Suggest to me reasonable and possible things, and I will enter into all your views with all my heart and without hesitation.”

This reply shocked me to the point of irritation.

“I believed you long to be a simple and disinterested soul,” I said to her, “and it was in this belief that I gave you my cordial affection.  Now I read your heart, and all your projects are revealed to me.  You are not only greedy of respect and consideration, you are ambitious to the point of madness.  The King’s widowhood has awakened all your wild dreams; you confided to me fifteen years ago that the soothsayer of the Marechale d’Albret had predicted for you a sceptre and a crown.”

At these words, the governess made me a sign to lower my voice, and said to me, with an accent of candour and good faith, which it is impossible for me to forget:  “I confided to you at the time that puerility of society, just as the Marechale and the Marshal (without believing it) related it to all France.  But this prognostication need not alarm you, madame,” she added; “a King like ours is incapable of such an extravagance, and if he were to determine on it, it would not have my countenance nor approval.

“I do not think that thus far I have passed due limits; the granddaughter of a great noble, of a first gentleman of the chamber, I have been able to become a lady in waiting without offending the eyes; but the lady in waiting will never be Queen, and I give you my permission to insult me publicly when I am.”

Such was this conversation, to which I have not added a word.  We shall see soon how Madame de Maintenon kept her word to me, and if I am not right in owing her a grudge for this promise with a double meaning, with which it was her caprice to decoy me by her shuffling.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Birth of the Duc d’Anjou.—­The Present to the Mother.—­The Casket of Patience.—­Departure of the King for the Army.—­The King Turns a Deaf Ear.—­How That Concerns Madame de Maintenon.—­The Prisoner of the Bastille.—­The Danger of Caricatures.—­The Administrative Thermometer.—­Actors Who Can neither Be Applauded nor Hissed.—­Relapse of the Prisoner.—­Scarron’s Will.—­A Fine Subject for Engraving.—­Madame de Maintenon’s Opinion upon the Jesuits.—­The Audience of the Green Salon.—­Portions from the Refectory.—­Madame de Maintenon’s Presence of Mind.—­I Will Make You Schoolmaster.