It is this which made the ministers so necessary to Madame de Maintenon, and her so necessary to them:  She rendered them, in fact, continual services by means of the King, in return for the services they rendered her.  The mutual concerns, therefore, between her and them were infinite; the King, all the while, not having the slightest suspicion of what was going on!

The power of Madame de Maintenon was, as may be imagined, immense.  She had everybody in her hands, from the highest and most favoured minister to the meanest subject of the realm.  Many people have been ruined by her, without having been able to discover the author of their ruin, search as they might.  All attempts to find a remedy were equally unsuccessful.

Yet the King was constantly on his guard, not only against Madame de Maintenon, but against his ministers also.  Many a time it happened that when sufficient care had not been taken, and he perceived that a minister or a general wished to favour a relative or protege of Madame de Maintenon, he firmly opposed the appointment on that account alone, and the remarks he uttered thereupon made Madame de Maintenon very timid and very measured when she wished openly to ask a favour.

Le Tellier, long before he was made Chancellor, well knew the mood of the King.  One of his friends asked him for some place that he much desired.  Le Tellier replied that he would do what he could.  The friend did not like this reply, and frankly said that it was not such as he expected from a man with such authority.  “You do not know the ground,” replied Le Tellier; “of twenty matters that we bring before the King, we are sure he will pass nineteen according to our wishes; we are equally certain that the twentieth will be decided against them.  But which of the twenty will be decided contrary to our desire we never know, although it may be the one we have most at heart.  The King reserves to himself this caprice, to make us feel that he is the master, and that he governs; and if, by chance, something is presented upon which he is obstinate, and which is sufficiently important for us to be obstinate about also, either on account of the thing itself, or for the desire we have that it should succeed as we wish, we very often get a dressing; but, in truth, the dressing over, and the affair fallen through, the King, content with having showed that we can do nothing, and pained by having vexed us, becomes afterwards supple and flexible, so that then is the time at which we can do all we wish.”

This is, in truth, how the King conducted himself with his ministers, always completely governed by them, even by the youngest and most mediocre, even by the least accredited and the least respected—­yet always on his guard against being governed, and always persuaded that he succeeded fully in avoiding it.

He adopted the same conduct towards Madame de Maintenon, whom at times he scolded terribly, and applauded himself for so doing.  Sometimes she threw herself on her knees before him, and for several days was really upon thorns.  When she had appointed Fagon physician of the King in place of Daquin, whom she dismissed, she had a doctor upon whom she could certainly rely, and she played the sick woman accordingly, after those scenes with the King, and in this manner turned them to her own advantage.