de Maintenon speak one evening with affection of the Court of England, at the time when peace was hoped for from Queen Anne, “My aunt,” she said, “you must admit that in England the queens govern better than the kings, and do you know why, my aunt?” asked she, running about and gambolling all the time, “because under kings it is women who govern, and men under queens.”  The joke is that they both laughed, and said she was right.

The King really could not do without her.  Everything went wrong with him if she was not by; even at his public supper, if she were away an additional cloud of seriousness and silence settled around him.  She took great care to see him every day upon arriving and departing; and if some ball in winter, or some pleasure party in summer, made her lose half the night, she nevertheless adjusted things so well that she went and embraced the King the moment he was up, and amused him with a description of the fete.

She was so far removed from the thoughts of death, that on Candlemas-day she talked with Madame de Saint-Simon of people who had died since she had been at Court, and of what she would herself do in old age, of the life she would lead, and of such like matters.  Alas! it pleased God, for our misfortune, to dispose of her differently.

With all her coquetry—­and she was not wanting in it—­never woman seemed to take less heed of her appearance; her toilette was finished in a moment, she cared nothing for finery except at balls and fetes; if she displayed a little at other times it was simply in order to please the king.  If the Court subsisted after her it was only to languish.  Never was princess so regretted, never one so worthy of it:  regrets have not yet passed away, the involuntary and secret bitterness they caused still remain, with a frightful blank not yet filled up.

Let me now turn to the Dauphin.

The youth of this prince made every one tremble.  Stern and choleric to the last degree, and even against inanimate objects; impetuous with frenzy, incapable of suffering the slightest resistance even from the hours and the elements, without flying into a passion that threatened to destroy his body; obstinate to excess; passionately fond of all kind of voluptuousness, of women, with even a worse passion strongly developed at the same time; fond not less of wine, good living, hunting, music, and gaming, in which last he could not endure to be beaten; in fine, abandoned to every passion, and transported by every pleasure; oftentimes wild, naturally disposed towards cruelty; barbarous in raillery, and with an all-powerful capacity for ridicule.

He looked down upon all men as from the sky, as atoms with whom he had nothing in common; even his brothers scarcely appeared connecting links between himself and human nature, although all had been educated together in perfect equality.  His sense and penetration shone through everything.  His replies, even in anger, astonished everybody.  He amused himself with the most abstract knowledge.  The extent and vivacity of his intellect were prodigious, and rendered him incapable of applying himself to one study at a time.