la Duchesse, and the Comte de Toulouse exhibited.  The grief of Madame la Duchesse especially was astonishing, for she always prided herself on loving nobody; still more astonishing was the grief of M. le Duc, so inaccessible to friendship.  We must remember, however, that this death put an end to many hopes.  M. du Maine, for his part, could scarcely repress his joy at the death of his mother, and after having stopped away from Marly two days, returned and caused the Comte de Toulouse to be recalled likewise.  Madame de Maintenon, delivered of a former rival, whose place she had taken, ought, it might have been thought, to have felt relieved.  It was otherwise; remorse for the benefits she had received from Madame de Montespan, and for the manner in which those benefits had been repaid, overwhelmed her.  Tears stole down her cheeks, and she went into a strange privacy to hide them.  Madame de Bourgogne, who followed, was speechless with astonishment.

The life and conduct of so famous a mistress, subsequent to her forced retirement, have appeared to me sufficiently curious to describe at length; and what happened at her death was equally characteristic of the Court.

The death of the Duchesse de Nemours, which followed quickly upon that of Madame de Montespart, made still more stir in the world, but of another kind.  Madame de Nemours was daughter, by a first marriage, of the last Duc de Longueville.  She was extremely rich, and lived in great splendour.  She had a strange look, and a droll way of dressing, big eyes, with which she could scarcely see, a shoulder that constantly twitched, grey hairs that she wore flowing, and a very imposing air.  She had a very bad temper, and could not forgive.  When somebody asked her if she said the Pater, she replied, yes, but that she passed by without saying it the clause respecting pardon for our enemies.  She did not like her kinsfolk, the Matignons, and would never see nor speak to any of them.  One day talking to the King at a window of his cabinet, she saw Matignon passing in the court below.  Whereupon she set to spitting five or six times running, and then turned to the King and begged his pardon, saying, that she could never see a Matignon without spitting in that manner.  It may be imagined that devotion did not incommode her.  She herself used to tell a story, that having entered one day a confessional, without being followed into the church, neither her appearance nor her dress gave her confessor an idea of her rank.  She spoke of her great wealth, and said much about the Princes de Conde and de Conti.  The confessor told her to pass by all that.  She, feeling that the case was a serious one, insisted upon explaining and made allusion to her large estates and her millions.  The good priest believed her mad, and told her to calm herself; to get rid of such ideas; to think no more of them; and above all to eat good soups, if she had the means to procure them.  Seized with anger she rose and left the place.  The confessor out of curiosity followed her to the door.  When he saw the good lady, whom he thought mad, received by grooms, waiting women, and so on, he had like to have fallen backwards; but he ran to the coach door and asked her pardon.  It was now her turn to laugh at him, and she got off scot-free that day from the confessional.