As we thus talked, the Duc de Vivonne came into my room.  Learning the topic of our discussion, he spoke as follows:  “I should not be general of the King’s Galleys and a soldier at heart and by profession if my opinion in this matter were other than it is.  I have attentively read controversies on this point, and have seen it conclusively proved that our kings never kept a confessor at Court.  Among these kings, too, there were most holy, most saintly people, and—­”

“Then, what do you conclude from that, Duke?” asked Madame de Maintenon.

“Why, that Madame will do well to respect his Majesty the King as her father-confessor.”

“Oh, Duke, you shock me!  What dreadful advice, to be sure!” cried the governess.

“I have not the least wish to shock you, madame; but my veneration for D’Aubigne—­

[Theodore Agrippa, Baron d’Aubigne, lieutenant-general in the army of Henri IV.  He persevered in Calvinism after the recantation of the King.—­Editor’s note.]

your illustrious grandfather—­is too great to let me think that he is among the damned, and he never attended confession at all.”

“Eternity hides that secret from us,” replied Madame de Maintenon.  “Each day I pray to God to have mercy upon my poor grandfather; if I thought he were among the saved, I should never be at pains to do this.”

“Bah, madame! let’s talk like sensible, straightforward people,” quoth the General.  “The reverend Pere de la Chaise—­one of the Jesuit oracles—­gives the King absolution every year, and authorises him to receive the Holy Sacrament at Easter.  If the King’s confessor—­thorough priest as he is—­pardons his intimacy with madame, here, how comes it that the other cleric won’t tolerate madame’s intimacy with the King?  On a point of such importance as this, the two confessors ought really to come to some agreement, or else, as the Jesuits have such a tremendous reputation, the Marquise is entitled to side with them.”

Hemmed in thus, Madame de Maintenon remarked “that the morals of Jesuits and lax casuists had never been hers,” and she advised me to choose a confessor far removed from the Court and its intrigues.

The next day she mentioned a certain village priest to me, uninfluenced by anybody, and whose primitive simplicity caused him to be looked upon as a saint.

I submitted, and ingenuously went to confess myself to this wonderful man; his great goodness did not prevent him from rallying me about the elegance of my costume, and the perfume of my gloves, and my hair.  He insisted upon knowing my name, and on learning it, flew into a passion.  I suppress the details of his disagreeable propositions.  Seated sideways in his confessional, he stamped on the floor, abused me, and spoke disrespectfully of the King.  I could not stand such scandalous behaviour for long; and, wearing my veil down, I got into my coach, being thoroughly determined that I would take a good long holiday.  M. de Vivonne soundly rated me for such cowardice, as he called it, while Madame de Maintenon offered me her curate-in-chief, or else the Abbe Gobelin.