The King used to take off his hat to women of all descriptions, even, the common peasants.

When he liked people he would tell them everything he had heard; and for this reason it was always dangerous to talk to him of that old Maintenon.

Although he loved flattery, he was very often ready to ridicule it.  Montespan and the old woman had spoiled him and hardened his heart against his relations, for he was naturally of a very affectionate disposition.

Louis XIV., as well as all the rest of his family, with the exception of my son, hated reading.  Neither the King nor Monsieur had been taught anything; they scarcely knew how to read and write.  The King was the most polite man in his kingdom, but his son and his grandchildren were the most rude.

In his youth he had played in the comedy of ‘Les Visionnaires’, which he knew by heart, and in which he acted better than the comedians.  He did not know a note of music; but his ear was so correct that he could play in a masterly style on the guitar, and execute whatever he chose.

It is not astonishing that the King and Monsieur were brought up in ignorance.  The Cardinal (Mazarin) wished to reign absolutely; if the princes had been better instructed, he would neither have been trusted nor employed, and this it was his object to prevent, hoping that he should live much longer than he did.  The Queen-mother found all that the Cardinal did perfectly right; and, besides, it suited her purpose that he should be indispensable.  It is almost a miracle that the King should have become what he afterwards was.

I never saw the King beat but two men, and they both well deserved it.  The first was a valet, who would not let him enter the garden during one of his own fetes.  The other was a pickpocket, whom the King saw emptying the pocket of M. de Villars.  Louis XIV., who was on horseback, rode towards the thief and struck him with his cane; the rascal cried out, “Murder!  I shall be killed!” which made us all laugh, and the King laughed, also.  He had the thief taken, and made him give up the purse, but he did not have him hanged.

The Duchesse de Schomberg was a good deal laughed at because she asked the King a hundred questions, which is not the fashion here.  The King was not well pleased to be talked to; but he never laughed in any one’s face.

When Louvois proposed to the King for the first time that he should appoint Madame Dufresnoy, his mistress, a lady of the Queen’s bedchamber, His Majesty replied, “Would you, then, have them laugh at both of us?” Louvois, however, persisted so earnestly in his request that the King at length granted it.

The Court of France was extremely agreeable until the King had the misfortune to marry that old Maintenon; she withdrew him from company, filled him with ridiculous scruples respecting plays, and told him that he ought not to see excommunicated persons.  In consequence of this she had a small theatre erected in her own apartments, where plays were acted twice a week before the King.  Instead of the dismissed comedians,