words would be spread about by these valets,
and would procure him some consideration from those who thought of the
future. But the present was insupportable to him. To escape from it, he
thought of serving in Spain, and wrote to Madame des Ursins asking
employment. The King was annoyed at this step, and flatly refused to let
him go to Spain. His intrigue, therefore, came to an end at once.

Nobody gained more by the fall of M. de Vendome than Madame de Maintenon.
Besides the joy she felt in overthrowing a man who, through M. du Maine,
owed everything to her, and yet dared to resist her so long and
successfully, she felt, also, that her credit became still more the
terror of the Court; for no one doubted that what had occurred was a
great example of her power. We shall presently see how she furnished
another, which startled no less.

CHAPTER XLVI.

It is time now to retrace my steps to the point from which I have been
led away in relating all the incidents which arose out of the terrible
winter and the scarcity it caused.

The Court at that time beheld the renewal of a ministry; which from the
time it had lasted was worn down to its very roots, and which was on
that account only the more agreeable to the King. On the 20th of
January, the Pere La Chaise, the confessor of the King, died at a very
advanced age. He was of good family, and his father would have been rich
had he not had a dozen children. Pere La Chaise succeeded in 1675 to
Pere Ferrier as confessor of the King, and occupied that post thirty-two
years. The festival of Easter often caused him politic absences during
the attachment of the King for Madame de Montespan. On one occasion he
sent in his place the Pere Deschamps, who bravely refused absolution.
The Pere La Chaise was of mediocre mind but of good character, just,
upright, sensible, prudent, gentle, and moderate, an enemy of informers,
and of violence of every kind. He kept clear of many scandalous
transactions, befriended the Archbishop of Cambrai as much as he could,
refused to push the Port Royal des Champs to its destruction, and always
had on his table a copy of the New Testament of Pere Quesnel, saying that
he liked what was good wherever he found it. When near his eightieth
year, with his head and his health still good, he wished to retire, but
the King would not hear of it. Soon after, his faculties became worn
out, and feeling this, he repeated his wish. The Jesuits, who p