Let me now speak of the amours of the King in which were even more fatal to the state than his building mania.  Their scandal filled all Europe; stupefied France, shook the state, and without doubt drew upon the King those maledictions under the weight of which he was pushed so near the very edge of the precipice, and had the misfortune of seeing his legitimate posterity within an ace of extinction in France.  These are evils which became veritable catastrophes and which will be long felt.

Louis XIV., in his youth more made for love than any of his subjects—­ being tired of gathering passing sweets, fixed himself at last upon La Valliere.  The progress and the result of his love are well known.

Madame de Montespan was she whose rare beauty touched him next, even during the reign of Madame de La Valliere.  She soon perceived it, and vainly pressed her husband to carry her away into Guienne.  With foolish confidence he refused to listen to her.  She spoke to him more in earnest.  In vain.  At last the King was listened to, and carried her off from her husband, with that frightful hubbub which resounded with horror among all nations, and which gave to the world the new spectacle of two mistresses at once!  The King took them to the frontiers, to the camps, to the armies, both of them in the Queen’s coach.  The people ran from all parts to look at the three queens; and asked one another in their simplicity if they had seen them.  In the end, Madame de Montespan triumphed, and disposed of the master and his Court with an eclat that knew no veil; and in order that nothing should be wanting to complete the licence of this life, M. de Montespan was sent to the Bastille; then banished to Guienne, and his wife was appointed superintendent of the Queen’s household.

The accouchements of Madame de Montespan were public.  Her circle became the centre of the Court, of the amusements, of the hopes and of the fears of ministers and the generals, and the humiliation of all France.  It was also the centre of wit, and of a kind so peculiar, so delicate, and so subtle, but always so natural and so agreeable, that it made itself distinguished by its special character.

Madame de Montespan was cross, capricious, ill-tempered, and of a haughtiness in everything which, readied to the clouds, and from the effects of which nobody, not even the King, was exempt.  The courtiers avoided passing under her windows, above all when the King was with her.  They used to say it was equivalent to being put to the sword, and this phrase became proverbial at the Court.  It is true that she spared nobody, often without other design than to divert the King; and as she had infinite wit and sharp pleasantry, nothing was more dangerous than the ridicule she, better than anybody, could cast on all.  With that she loved her family and her relatives, and did not fail to serve people for whom she conceived friendship.  The Queen endured with difficulty her haughtiness—­very different from the respect and measure with which she had been treated by the Duchesse de la Valliere, whom she always loved; whereas of Madame de Montespan she would say, “That strumpet will cause my death.”  The retirement, the austere penitence, and the pious end of Madame de Montespan have been already described.