when pressed to do so by the King; a rival,
too, so beneath her in beauty, and older by several years; to feel that
it was this lady's-maid, not to say this servant, that the King most
frequently went to see; that he sought only her; that he could not
dissimulate his uneasiness if he did not find her; that he quitted all
for her; in fine, that at all moments she (Madame de Montespan) needed
the intervention of Madame de Maintenon, in order to attract the King to
reconcile her with him, or to obtain the favours she asked for. It was
then, in times so propitious to the enchantress, that the King became
free by the death of the Queen.

He passed the first few days at Saint-Cloud, at Monsieur's, whence he
went to Fontainebleau, where he spent all the autumn. It was there that
his liking, stimulated by absence, made him find that absence
insupportable. Upon his return it is pretended--for we must distinguish
the certain from that which is not so--it is pretended, I say, that the
King spoke more freely to Madame de Maintenon, and that she; venturing to
put forth her strength, intrenched herself behind devotion and prudery;
that the King did not cease, that she preached to him and made him afraid
of the devil, and that she balanced his love against his conscience with
so much art, that she succeeded in becoming what our eyes have seen her,
but what posterity will never believe she was.

But what is very certain and very true, is, that some time after the
return of the King from Fontainebleau, and in the midst of the winter
that followed the death of the Queen (posterity will with difficulty
believe it, although perfectly true and proved), Pere de la Chaise,
confessor of the King, said mass at the dead of night in one of the
King's cabinets at Versailles. Bontems, governor of Versailles, chief
valet on duty, and the most confidential of the four, was present at this
mass, at which the monarch and La Maintenon were married in presence of
Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, as diocesan, of Louvois (both of whom drew
from the King a promise that he would never declare this marriage), and
of Montchevreuil. This last was a relative and friend of Villarceaux, to
whom during the summer he lent his house at Montchevreuil, remaining
there himself, however, with his wife; and in that house Villarceaux kept
Madame Scarron, paying all the expenses because his relative was poor,
and because he (Villarceaux) was ashamed to take her to his own