The Regent assured her during this visit that the four thousand livres the King had given her every month should be continued, and should be brought to her the first day of every month by the Duc de Noailles, who had apparently induced the Prince to pay this visit, and promise this present.  He said to Madame de Maintenon that if she wished for more she had only to speak, and assured her he would protect Saint-Cyr.  In leaving he was shown the young girls, all together in classes.

It must be remembered, that besides the estate of Maintenon, and the other property of this famous and fatal witch, the establishment of Saint-Cyr, which had more than four hundred thousand livres yearly income, and much money in reserve, was obliged by the rules which founded it, to receive Madame de Maintenon, if she wished to retire there; to obey her in all things, as the absolute and sole superior; to keep her and everybody connected with her, her domestics, her equipages, as she wished, her table, etc., at the expense of the house, all of which was very punctually done until her death.  Thus she needed not this generous liberality, by which her pension of forty-eight thousand livres was continued to her.  It would have been quite enough if M. le Duc d’Orleans had forgotten that she was in existence, and had simply left her untroubled in Saint-Cyr.

The Regent took good care not to inform me of his visit, before or after; and I took good care not to reproach him with it, or make him ashamed of it.  It made much noise, and was not approved of.  The Spanish affair was not yet forgotten, and the will and codicil furnished other matter for all conversations.

CHAPTER LXXX

Saturday, the 7th of September, was the day fixed for the first Bed of Justice of the King (Louis XV.); but he caught a cold during the night, and suffered a good deal.  The Regent came alone to Paris.  The Parliament had assembled, and I went to a door of the palace, where I was informed of the countermand which had just arrived.  The Chief-President and the King’s people were at once sent for to the Palais Royal, and the Parliament, which was about to adjourn, was continued for all the rest of the month for general business.  On the morrow, the Regent, who was wearied with Versailles,—­for he liked to live in Paris, where all his pleasures were within easy reach,—­and who met with opposition from the Court doctors, all comfortably lodged at Versailles, to the removal of the person of the King to Vincennes, under pretext of a slight cold, fetched other doctors from Paris, who had been sent for to see the deceased King.  These practitioners, who had nothing to gain by recommending Versailles, laughed at the Court doctors, and upon their opinion it was resolved to take the King to Vincennes, where all was ready for him on the morrow.

He set out, then, that day from Versailles, at about two o’clock in the day, in company with the Regent, the Duchesse de Ventadour, the Duc du Maine, and the Marechal de Villeroy, passed round the ramparts of Paris, without entering the city, and arrived at Vincennes about five o’clock, many people and carriages having come out along the road to see him.