.

Any one else would have been bored by such a rigmarole; it rather amused
me.

That evening, and for a week afterwards, nothing else but this sermon was
talked of at Versailles. The Queen had received complete satisfaction.
Before me she was at pains not to laugh, and I was pleased to see that
her resentment had almost disappeared.

Upon his return, the King was for punishing such an offence as this.
Things are not easily hidden from him; his Majesty desired to know the
name and rank of the ecclesiastic. The entire Court replied that he was
a good-looking young Franciscan.

The chief almoner, being forced to state the monastery from which the
preacher came, mentioned the Cordeliers of Paris. There it transpired
that the monk told off by the prior for this enterprise had been too
frightened to execute it, and had sent, as his deputy, a young actor from
Orleans,--a brother of his, who thus could not say no.

So, as it happened, Queen Maria Theresa and her chief almoner (an
exemplary person) had caused virtue to be preached to me by a young
play-actor! The King dared not take further proceedings in so strange a
matter, for fear lest one scandal might beget a far greater one. It was
this that caused Madame Cornuel to remark, "The pulpit is in want of
comedians; they work wonders there!"

CHAPTER XXXI.

The King Alters His Opinion about Madame Scarron.--He Wants Her to Assume
Another Name.--He Gives Her the Maintenon Estates.--She and Madame de
Montespan Visit These.--A Strange Story.

At first the King used to feel afraid of Madame Scarron, and seemingly
laughed at me when I endeavoured to persuade him that there was nothing
affected or singular about her. The Marquis de Beringhen, for some
reason or other, had prejudiced his Majesty against her, so that very
often, when the King heard that she was visiting me, he never got beyond
the vestibule, but at once withdrew. One day she was telling me, in her
pleasant, original way, a funny tale about the famous Brancas, and I
laughed till I cried again,--in fact, until I nearly made myself quite
ill.

The King, who was listening at the door, was greatly tickled by the
story. He came in smiling and thoroughly self-possessed. Then,
addressing the governess, he said, "Madame, allow me to compliment you
and to thank you at the same time. I thought you were of a serious,
melancholy disposition, but as I listened to you through the keyhole, I
am no longer