had any reason to complain of Monsieur in respect to his behavior so far
as other women were concerned." She had no "love affair" in all the
years she lived with him. A cabal, seeking to fasten scandal upon her in
connection with the Chevalier Sincsanct, utterly failed to produce proof
against her, or even to cast public suspicion upon her. She had three
children, two boys and a girl. The oldest boy died at the age of three
years. The struggle of Elizabeth's life was to preserve her two
remaining children from the impure influences around them, and it was a
long and bitter fight. Her daughter she saved. Her son, afterward Regent
of France during the long minority of Louis XV., owed all that was good
in him and that was much, in spite of his excesses to the prayers, the
love, the admonitions of his mother. In her efforts to train the
children rightly Elizabeth was constantly thwarted by her husband.
Philip was entirely controlled by two bad men, the Chevalier de Lorraine
and the Marquis d'Essiat. Both hated Elizabeth because of her moral
influence over the king. By her efforts, many of their iniquitous plots
against women were frustrated. The only way they could punish her was
through her children. Madame de Maintenon, whom Elizabeth treated
disdainfully, was believed by the duchess to have been an accomplice in
the plan to remove her children from her influence.

Madame de Maintenon loved the children of the king's former mistress,
Montespan, as if they were her own. Two of these children, Mademoiselle
de Blois and the Duke of Maine, were still unmarried. It was now
proposed, ostensibly by the king, that Elizabeth's son, the Duke of
Chartres, should marry Mademoiselle de Blois. Also, it was planned, that
her daughter Charlotte should at the same time become the wife of the
young Duke of Maine. Elizabeth was furious. She refused her consent.
Saint-Simon, in his Memoirs, says of her at this time:

"She belongs to a nation which abhors bastards and mesalliances.
Moreover, she has a determined character which forbids all hope that she
may ever consent."

The Duke of Chartres a boy of eighteen promised his mother to refuse to
contract the alliance. Then, the Abbe Dubois, who had great influence
over him, secured a contrary promise. When the king himself urged the
duke to marry Mademoiselle de Blois, the youth became confused and said
he would leave the decision to his parents. Whereupon, his father,
without more ado, had