nd
demanding her back from Jupiter. Everybody saluted, and stood aside out
of respect. Monsieur had taken refuge in lansquenet; never was anything
so shamefaced as his look or so disconcerted as his whole appearance, and
this first condition lasted more than a month with him. The Duke of
Chartres came into the gallery, going up to his mother, as he did every
day, to kiss her hand. At that moment, Madame gave him a box of the ear
so loud that it was heard some paces off, and given as it was before the
whole court, covered the poor prince with confusion, and overwhelmed the
countless spectators with prodigious astonishment." That did not prevent
or hamper the marriage, which took place with great pomp at Versailles on
the 18th of February, 1692. The king was, and continued to the last, the
absolute and dread master of all his family, to its remotest branches.

He lost through this obedience a great deal that is charming and sweet
in daily intercourse. For him and for Madame de Maintenon the great and
inexhaustible attraction of the Duchess of Burgundy was her gayety and
unconstrained ease, tempered by the most delicate respect, which this
young princess, on coming as quite a child to France from the court of
Savoy, had tact enough to introduce, and always maintain, amidst the most
intimate familiarity. "In public, demure, respectful with the king, and
on terms of timid propriety with Madame de Maintenon, whom she never
called anything but aunt, thus prettily blending rank and affection.
In private, chattering, frisking, fluttering around them, at one time
perched on the arm of one or the other's chair, at another playfully
sitting on their knee, she would throw herself upon their necks, embrace
them, kiss them, fondle them, pull them to pieces, chuck them under the
chin, tease them, rummage their tables, their papers, their letters,
reading them sometimes against their will, according as she saw that they
were in the humor to laugh at it, and occasionally speaking thereon.
Admitted to everything, even at the reception of couriers bringing the
most important news, going into the king at any hour, even at the time
the council was sitting, useful and also fatal to ministers themselves,
but always inclined to help, to excuse, to benefit, unless she were
violently set against anybody. The king could not do without her; when,
rarely, she was absent from his supper in public, it was plainly shown by
a cloud of more than