Several years afterwards, Louvois, who took care to be well informed of all that passed in the palace, found out that Madame de Maintenon had been again scheming in order to be declared Queen; that the King had had the weakness to promise she should be, and that the declaration was about to be made.  He put some papers in his hand, and at once went straight to the King, who was in a very private room.  Seeing Louvois at an unexpected hour, he asked him what brought him there.  “Something pressing and important,” replied Louvois, with a sad manner that astonished the King, and induced him to command the valets present to quit the room.  They went away in fact, but left the door open, so that they could hear all, and see all, too, by the glass.  This was the great danger of the cabinets.

The valets being gone, Louvois did not dissimulate from the King his mission.  The monarch was often false, but incapable of rising above his own falsehood.  Surprised at being discovered, he tried to shuffle out of the matter, and pressed by his minister, began to move so as to gain the other cabinet where the valets were, and thus deliver himself from this hobble.  But Louvois, who perceived what he was about, threw himself on his knees and stopped him, drew from his side a little sword he wore, presented the handle to the King, and prayed him to kill him on the spot, if he would persist in declaring his marriage, in breaking his word, and covering himself in the eyes of Europe with infamy.  The King stamped, fumed, told Louvois to let him go.  But Louvois squeezed him tighter by the legs for fear he should escape; represented to him the shame of what he had decided on doing; in a word, succeeded so well, that he drew for the second time from the King, a promise that the marriage should never be declared.

Madame de Maintenon meanwhile expected every moment to be proclaimed Queen.  At the end of some days disturbed by the silence of the King, she ventured to touch upon the subject.  The embarrassment she caused the King much troubled her.  He softened the affair as much as he could, but finished by begging her to think no more of being declared, and never to speak of it to him again!  After the first shock that the loss of her hopes caused her, she sought to find out to whom she was beholden for it.  She soon learned the truth; and it is not surprising that she swore to obtain Louvois’s disgrace, and never ceased to work at it until successful.  She waited her opportunity, and undermined her enemy at leisure, availing herself of every occasion to make him odious to the King.

Time passed.  At length it happened that Louvois, not content with the terrible executions in the Palatinate, which he had counselled, wished to burn Treves.  He proposed it to the King.  A dispute arose between them, but the King would not or could not be persuaded.  It may be imagined that Madame de Maintenon did not do much to convince him.