and not unnatural result was that the King was taken violently
ill, and Madame de Montespan's anxiety and suspense were increased
thereby. On his recovery, however, it would seem that the demoniac
sacrament--thrice repeated by then--had not been in vain.

The sequel, indeed, appeared to justify Madame de Montespan's faith
in sorcery, and to compensate her for all the horror to which in
her despair she had submitted. Madame de Ludres found herself coldly
regarded by the convalescent King. Very soon she was discarded, the
Widow Scarron neglected, and the fickle monarch was once more at the
feet of the lovely marchioness, her utter and devoted slave.

Thus was Madame de Montespan "thunderously triumphant" once more, and
established as firmly as 'ever in the Sun-King's favour. Madame de
Sevigne, in speaking of this phase of their relations, dilates upon the
completeness of the reconciliation, and tells us that the ardour of
the first years seemed now to have returned. And for two whole years it
continued thus. Never before had Madame de Montespan's sway been more
absolute, no shadow came to trouble, the serenity of her rule.

But it proved, after all, to be no more than the last flare of an
expiring fire that was definitely quenched at last, in 1679, by
Mademoiselle de Fontanges. A maid of honour to madame, she was a child
of not more than eighteen years, fair and flaxen, with pink cheeks and
large, childish eyes; and it was for this doll that the regal Montespan
now found herself discarded.

Honours rained upon the new favourite. Louis made her a duchess with
an income of twenty thousand livres, and deeply though this may have
disgusted his subjects, it disgusted Madame de Montespan still more.
Blinded by rage she openly abused the new duchess, and provoked a fairly
public scene with Louis, in which she gave him her true opinion of him
with a disturbing frankness.

"You dishonour yourself," she informed him among other things. "And you
betray your taste when you make love to a pink-and-white doll, a little
fool that has no more wit nor manners than if she were painted on
canvas!" Then, with an increase of scorn, she delivered herself of an
unpardonable apostrophe: "You, a king, to accept the inheritance of that
chit's rustic lovers!"

He flushed and scowled upon her.

"That is an infamous falsehood!" he exclaimed. "Madame, you are
unbearable!" He was very angry, and it infuriated him the more that
she should stand