ving learnt that they had neither terraces nor gardens at the grand
monastery of the Rue Saint Antoine, his Majesty made a present to his
confessor of a very agreeable house in the district of Belleville, and
caused to be transported thither all kinds of orange-trees, rare shrubs,
and flowers from Versailles. These tasteful attentions, these filial
cares, diverted the capital somewhat; but Paris is a rich soil, where the
strangest things are easily received and naturalised without an effort.

The Pare de la Chaise had his chariot with his arms on it, and his family
livery; and as the income from his benefices remained to him, joined to
his office of confessor, he continued to have every day a numerous court
of young abbes, priests well on in years, barons, countesses, marquises,
magistrates and colonels, who came to Belleville in anxiety about his
health, to congratulate themselves upon his convalescence, to ask of him,
with submission and reverence, a bishopric, an archbishopric, a
cardinal's hat, an important priory, a canonry, or an abbey.

Having myself to place the three daughters of one of my relatives, I went
to see the noble confessor at his pavilion of Belleville. He received me
with the most marked distinction, and was lavish in acts of gratitude for
all the benefits of the King.

As he crossed his salon, in order to accompany me and escort me out, he
let his white handkerchief fall; three bishops at once flung themselves
upon it, and there was a struggle as to who should pick it up to give it
back to him.

I related to the King what I had seen. He said to me: "These prelates
honour my confessor, looking upon him as a second me." In fact, the sins
of the King could only throw his confessor into relief and add to his
merit.

CHAPTER XVI.

Mademoiselle de Fontanges.--The Pavilions of the Garden of Flora.--Rapid
Triumph of the Favourite.--Her Retreat to Val-de-grace.--Her Death.

Madame de Maintenon was already forty-four years old, and appeared to be
only thirty. This freshness, that she owed either to painstaking care or
to her happy and quite peculiar constitution, gave her that air of youth
which fascinated the eyes of the courtiers and those of the monarch
himself. I wished one day to annoy her by bringing the conversation on
this subject, which could not be diverting to her. I began by putting
the question generally, and I then named several of our superannuated
beauties who still flut