sible things, and I will
enter into all your views with all my heart and without hesitation."

This reply shocked me to the point of irritation.

"I believed you long to be a simple and disinterested soul," I said to
her, "and it was in this belief that I gave you my cordial affection. Now
I read your heart, and all your projects are revealed to me. You are not
only greedy of respect and consideration, you are ambitious to the point
of madness. The King's widowhood has awakened all your wild dreams; you
confided to me fifteen years ago that the soothsayer of the Marechale
d'Albret had predicted for you a sceptre and a crown."

At these words, the governess made me a sign to lower my voice, and said
to me, with an accent of candour and good faith, which it is impossible
for me to forget: "I confided to you at the time that puerility of
society, just as the Marechale and the Marshal (without believing it)
related it to all France. But this prognostication need not alarm you,
madame," she added; "a King like ours is incapable of such an
extravagance, and if he were to determine on it, it would not have my
countenance nor approval.

"I do not think that thus far I have passed due limits; the granddaughter
of a great noble, of a first gentleman of the chamber, I have been able
to become a lady in waiting without offending the eyes; but the lady in
waiting will never be Queen, and I give you my permission to insult me
publicly when I am."

Such was this conversation, to which I have not added a word. We shall
see soon how Madame de Maintenon kept her word to me, and if I am not
right in owing her a grudge for this promise with a double meaning, with
which it was her caprice to decoy me by her shuffling.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Birth of the Duc d'Anjou.--The Present to the Mother.--The Casket of
Patience.--Departure of the King for the Army.--The King Turns a Deaf
Ear.--How That Concerns Madame de Maintenon.--The Prisoner of the
Bastille.--The Danger of Caricatures.--The Administrative
Thermometer.--Actors Who Can neither Be Applauded nor Hissed.--Relapse of
the Prisoner.--Scarron's Will.--A Fine Subject for Engraving.--Madame de
Maintenon's Opinion upon the Jesuits.--The Audience of the Green
Salon.--Portions from the Refectory.--Madame de Maintenon's Presence of
Mind.--I Will Make You Schoolmaster.

Madame la Dauphine, greatly pleased with her new position, in that she
represented the person of the Queen, had alrea