as I review my life, that since I
was twenty-two years of age--when my good fortune began--I have not
been free from suffering for a moment; and through my life my
sufferings increased."

If Madame de Maintenon confessed so much in her last days, what must
the other favorites of Versailles have experienced and felt? Each wore
the mask of Comedy, with Tragedy gnawing beneath. These brilliant
women, who seemed at times to be so happy, were little more than
slaves, and we find them disclosed in the memoirs of the time as
"penitents who make their apologies to history and lay bare to future
generations their miseries, vexations and the remorse of their souls."
The demands of Court life were constant and relentlessly exacting. The
favorites, each one striving to outdo the others, knew not, from day to
day, what way their destinies were leading them.

"If," exclaimed Saint-Amand, "among these favorites of the King, there
were a single one that had enjoyed her shameful triumphs in peace, that
could have recalled herself happy in the midst of her luxury and
splendor, one might have concluded that, from a merely human point of
view, it is possible to find happiness in vice. But no; there was not
even one. The Duchesse de Chateauroux and Marquise de Pompadour were
no happier than the Duchesse de la Valliere and the Marquise de
Montespan."

The Sun King built Versailles and established his Court there. It was
the women that made the life of Versailles--and gave their lives to it.
The Court was a dazzling spider's web, and many a beautiful favorite
became fatally entangled in its glittering meshes.

Louis XIV, when twenty-two years of age, married Marie Therese,
daughter of Philip IV of Spain. If he had been a simple, respectable
young man of France, he might then have settled down and finished the
story by "living happily ever after." But he was not. He was the King
of France; so he pursued the royal road that his antecedents had blazed
before him; and the way was made easy and pleasant for him. In
treading the "primrose path of dalliance" he allowed no grass to grow
under his feet.

Louis made Marie Therese his Queen and consort in 1660, and it was only
a year later when his fancy was caught by the dainty and attractive
little Francoise Louise La Valliere. She was scarcely more than
seventeen years of age when she became the favorite of the King. She
was a delicate little creature, slightly lame, but most femini