ys anything severe of you?"

I answered, "Because she loves me."

I would not tell him what I had done, for he would immediately have
excited her to attack me.

I was called sometimes 'Soeur Pacifique', because I did all in my power
to maintain harmony between Monsieur and his cousins, La Grande
Mademoiselle,

[Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orleans, Duchesse de Montpensier, and
Marguerite-Louise d'Orleans, Duchess of Tuscany, daughters of
Gaston, Duc d'Orleans, but by different wives.]

and La Grande Duchesse:

[Charlotte-Eleonore-Maddleine de la Motte Houdancourt, Duchesse de
Ventadour; she was gouvernante to Louis XV.]

they quarrelled very frequently, and always like children, for the
slightest trifles.

Madame de Ventadour was my Maid of Honour for at least sixteen years.
She did not quit me until two years after the death of my husband, and
then it was by a contrivance of old Maintenon; she wished to annoy me
because she knew I was attached to this lady, who was good and amiable,
but not very cunning. Old Maintenon succeeded in depriving me of her by
means of promises and threats, which were conveyed by Soubise, whose son
had married Madame de Ventadour's daughter, and who was an artful woman.
By way of recompense she was made gouvernante. They tried, also, to
deprive me of Madame de Chateau Thiers; the old woman employed all her
power there, too, but Madame de Chateau Thiers remained faithful to me,
without telling of these attempts, which I learnt from another source.

Madame de Monaco might, perhaps, be fond of forming very close
attachments of her own sex, and Madame de Maintenon would have put me on
the same footing; but she did not succeed, and was so much vexed at her
disappointment that she wept. Afterwards she wanted to make me in love
with the Chevalier de Vendome, and this project succeeded no better than
the other. She often said she could not think of what disposition I must
be, since I cared neither for men nor women, and that the German nation
must be colder than any other.

I like persons of that cool temperament. The poor Dauphine of Bavaria
used to send all the young coxcombs of the Court to me, knowing that I
detested such persons, and would be nearly choked with laughter at seeing
the discontented air with which I talked to them.

Falsehood and superstition were never to my taste.

The King was in the habit of saying, "Madame cannot endure unequal
marriages; sh