ular occasion, similar to a present-day
drawing room, Lady Castlemaine was introduced by the king, the queen,
who did not know her and imperfectly caught the name, received her
with grace and benignity; but realizing in a moment who it was, she
became transformed, her urbanity disappeared, and, fully alive to the
insult which had been publicly offered her, she was swept with a wave
of passion: "She started from her chair, turned as pale as ashes,
then red with shame and anger, the blood gushed from her nose, and she
swooned in the arms of her women." Lord Clarendon, who was a witness
of the contest between the wife and mistress and sought to prevent the
king from becoming controlled by the latter, finally absented himself
from court; thereupon the king wrote him a letter in which, after
declaring his purpose of making Lady Castlemaine a lady of his
wife's bedchamber, he added: "And whosoever I find to be my Lady
Castlemaine's enemy, I do promise upon my word to be his enemy as
long as I live." The king's missive had its effect; and Lord Clarendon
undertook to persuade the queen to bear the indignity, although he
had replied to the king that it was "more than flesh and blood could
comply with," and reminded him of the difference between the French
and English courts: "That in the former, such connections were not
new and scandalous, whereas in England they were so unheard of, and
so odious, that the mistress of the king was infamous to all women of
honour."

The king himself succeeded better in reconciling the queen to the
shameful situation than did his minister, for, after several scenes
between them, he treated her with studied coldness and indifference,
and in her presence assumed an air of exceptional gayety toward all
other women. The unhappy queen finally acquiesced in a situation which
she could not improve, and suffered much greater indignities than
those which she had futilely resented. There is little more of
interest to add with regard to this woman, whose position placed
her first at court, but who really was regarded by the king and his
courtiers as the most insignificant of its personages. She never quite
gave up the hope that she might win at least a share of the affection
which her husband bestowed upon others, and to that end she eventually
laid aside her retiring ways, dressed decollete, and gave magnificent
balls, to which she invited the fairest women of the nobility, thus
seeking, by humoring the f