and capriciousness in their
intractable and contradictory humors--there is enough of it all, to
disgust us."

When, in 1675, she took the final vows, she cut off her beautiful hair
and devoted herself to the church and to charity, receiving the veil
from the queen, whose forgiveness she sought before entering the
convent. The king showed himself to be such a jealous lover, that when
Mlle. de La Valliere entirely abandoned him for God, he forgot her
absolutely, never going to the convent to see her.

She was by far the most interesting and pathetic of the three
mistresses of Louis XIV.; her heart was superior to that of either
of her successors, though her mind was inferior; she belonged to a
different atmosphere--such kindness, charity, penitence, resignation,
and absolute abandonment to God were rare among the conspicuous French
women. Sainte-Beuve says: "She loved for love, without haughtiness,
coquetry, arrogance, ambitious designs, self-interest, or vanity; she
suffered and sacrificed everything, humiliated herself to expiate her
wrong-doing, and finally surrendered herself to God, seeking in prayer
the treasures of energy and tenderness; through her heart, her mental
powers attained their complete development."

The fate of Mlle. de La Valliere was the same as that of nearly all
royal mistresses; abandoned and absolutely forgotten by her lover, she
sought refuge and consolation in religion and God's mercy. "She
was dead to me the day she entered the Carmelites'," said the king,
thirty-five years later, when the modest and fervent nun at last
expired, in 1710, without having ever relaxed the severities of her
penance.

Of an entirely different type from Mlle. de La Valliere was that
haughtiest and most supercilious of all French mistresses, Mme. de
Montespan. The picture drawn by M. Saint-Amand does her full justice:
"A haughty and opulent beauty, a forest of hair, flashing blue eyes, a
complexion of splendid carnation and dazzling whiteness, one of those
alluring and radiant countenances which shed brightness around them
wherever they appear, an incisive, caustic wit, an unquenchable thirst
for riches and pleasure, luxury and power, the manners of a goddess
audaciously usurping the place of Juno on Olympus, passion without
love, pride without true dignity, splendor without harmony--that was
Mme. de Montespan." And these qualities were the secret of her success
as well as of her fall.

From this description i