There was no relief for the King.  All his resource was in the commonplace talk of the Comte de Toulouse, who was not amusing, although ignorant of the plot, and the stories of his valets, who lost tongue as soon as they perceived that they were not seconded by the Duc du Maine in his usual manner.  Marechal and all the rest, astonished at the mysterious dejection of the Duc du Maine, looked at each other without being able to divine the cause.  They saw that the King was sad and bored; they trembled for his health, but not one of them dared to do anything.  Time ran on, and the dejection of M. du Maine and Madame de Maintenon increased.  This is as far as the most instructed have ever been able to penetrate.  To describe the interior scenes that doubtless passed during the long time this state of things lasted, would be to write romance.  Truth demands that we should relate what we know, and admit what we are ignorant of.  I cannot go farther, therefore, or pierce deeper into the density of these dark mysteries.

What is certain is, that cheerfulness came back all at once, with the same surprise to the witnesses of it, as the long-continued dejection had caused them, simply because they understood no more of the end than of the commencement.  The double knowledge did not come to them until they heard the frightful crash of the thunderbolt which fell upon France, and astonished all Europe.

To give some idea of the opposition from the King, M. du Maine and Madame de Maintenon had to overcome, and to show how reluctantly he consented to their wishes, more than one incident may be brought forward.  Some days before the news transpired, the King, full of the enormity of what he had just done for his bastards, looked at them in his cabinet, in presence of the valets, and of D’Antin and D’O, and in a sharp manner, that told of vexation, and with a severe glance, suddenly thus addressed himself to M. du Maine: 

“You have wished it; but know that however great I may make you, and you may be in my lifetime, you are nothing after me; and it will be for you then to avail yourself of what I have done for you, if you can.”

Everybody present trembled at a thunder-clap so sudden, so little expected, so entirely removed from the character and custom of the King, and which showed so clearly the extreme ambition of the Duc du Maine, and the violence he had done to the weakness of the King, who seemed to reproach himself for it, and to reproach the bastard for his ambition and tyranny.  The consternation of M. du Maine seemed extreme at this rough sally, which no previous remark had led to.  The King had made a clean breast of it.  Everybody fixed his eyes upon the floor and held his breath.  The silence was profound for a considerable time:  it finished only when the King passed into his wardrobe.  In his absence everybody breathed again.  The King’s heart was full to bursting with what he had just been made to do; but like a woman who gives birth to two children, he had at present brought but one into the world, and bore a second of which he must be delivered, and of which he felt all the pangs without any relief from the suffering the first had caused him.