The Hall of Mirrors, had it the power to reflect the
past, would afford a gallery of brilliant portraits. There would be,
first, the devout Queen herself, virtuous, kind, considerate, loved by
all her people and gently resigned to her fate. Then would follow a
glittering train of proud and brilliant mistresses, some compelling by
their beauty and gayety, others by their wit and sense. Sweet Madame
de La Valliere had scarcely passed into obscurity when the haughty and
imperious Marquise de Montespan assumed supremacy and became "the
center of pleasures, of fortune, of hope and of terror to all that were
dependent on the Court." No one could rightly claim to be an intimate
of Montespan except the King, and at times he did not understand her.
While apparently frank and free in her enjoyment of life and in her
dealings with associates in the Court, Montespan always withheld enough
to keep her best friends guessing. No one knew all her romance. She
had experienced both extremes of fortune and when she gained favor with
Louis she had acquired a confidence and a command of herself that
influenced the King to a degree that even he would not have
acknowledged. But the Court knew well the influence of Montespan and
also the ministers, generals of the army and foreign ambassadors.
Montespan succeeded Madame de La Valliere in favor about 1667 and she
held her supremacy for ten years. Then came the turn of her fortunes,
for Madame de Maintenon, fascinating in all that makes feminine charm
and with an extraordinary mind in addition, supplanted Montespan and
became the companion of the King until his dying day. Montespan, who
had eight children by the King, left the Court in bitterness and
humiliation and, like La Valliere, ended her life in a convent.

Madame de Maintenon was the most distinguished woman in the history of
Versailles. As a girl, in abject poverty, she married in 1652 the good
old poet Scarron. There was no love lost there. She merely took the
gentle-hearted man because he offered either to pay for her entrance
into a convent or to make her his wife, and she found the latter
alternative more acceptable. During the nine years she lived with
Scarron, she maintained a brilliant salon, in which gathered the great
intelluctual figures of the time. In 1669 Madame de Montespan gave
Madame de Maintenon the charge of one of her sons. In that manner
Montespan brought her governess in touch with her King, and, in