The history of Theodora, in Procopius, bears a singular resemblance to that of Maintenon.  In the history of Sweden, too, there is a similar character in the person of Sigbritta, a Dutch woman, who lived during the reign of Christian il, King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, who bears so great a likeness to Maintenon that I was struck with it as soon as I read it.  I cannot imagine how they came to permit its publication.  It is fortunate for the Abbe Vertot, who is the author, that the King does not love reading, otherwise he would certainly have been sent to the Bastille.  Several persons thought that the Abbe had invented it by way of a joke, but he swears by all that is good that he found it in the annals of Sweden.  The old woman cannot have read it either, for she is too much occupied in reading the letters written to her from Paris, relating all that is going on there and at the Court.  Sometimes the packets have consisted of twenty or thirty sheets; she kept them or showed them to the King, according as she liked or disliked the persons.

She was not deficient in wit, and could talk very well whenever she chose.  She did not like to be called La Marquise, but preferred the simpler and shorter title of Madame de Maintenon.

She did not scruple to display openly the hatred she had for me.  For example, when the Queen of England came to Marly, and went out on foot or in the carriage with the King, on their return the Queen, the Dauphine, the Princess of England, and all the Princesses, went into the King’s room; I alone was excluded.

It was with great regret that I gave up my Maids of Honour.  I had four, sometimes five of them, with their governess and sub-governess; they amused me very much, for they were all very gay.  The old woman feared there might be some among them to whom the King might take a fancy, as he had done to Ludre and Fontange.  I only kept my Maids of Honour a year after the death of Monsieur.—­[1702]—­The King was always fond of the sex, and if the old woman had not watched him very narrowly he would have slipped through her fingers in spite of all his devotion.

She hated the Dauphine because the latter would not let her treat her like a child, but wished to keep a Court and live as became her rank.  This the old woman could not and would not endure.  She loved to set all things in confusion, as she did afterwards with the second Dauphine, in the hope of compelling the King to recognize and proclaim her as Queen; but this the King never would do, notwithstanding all her artifices.—­

[Other writers including Madame de Montespan put it just the opposite way that the King wished to proclaim Maintenon Queen and she refused.  D.W.]

Nobody at Court used perfumery except that old woman; her gloves were always scented with jessamine.  The King could not bear scent on any other person, and only endured it in her because she made him believe that it was somebody else who was perfumed.