ounces the smallpox. Every imaginable care was useless;
he died of it and bequeathed, in spite of himself, a most premature and
afflicting widowhood to his young and charming spouse, who was not, till
long afterwards, let into the secret of his scandalous excesses.

M. de la Roche-sur-Yon, his only brother, was as distressed at his death
as though he had nothing to gain by it; he took immediately the name of
Conti, and doffed the other, which he had hitherto borne as a borrowed
title. The domain and county of La Roche-sur-Yon belongs to the Grande
Mademoiselle. She had been asked to make this condescension when the
young Prince was born. She agreed with a good grace, for the child, born
prematurely, did not seem likely to live.

CHAPTER XXXV.

Ninon at Court.--The King behind the Glass.--Anxiety of the Marquise on
the Subject of This Interview.--Visit to Madame de Maintenon.--Her Reply
and Her Ambiguous Promise.

Mademoiselle de l'Enclos is universally known in the world for the
agreeableness of her superior wit and her charms of face and person. When
Madame de Maintenon, after the loss of her father, arrived from
Martinique, she had occasion to make her acquaintance; and it seems that
it was Ninon who, seeing her debating between the offers of M. Scarron
and the cloister, succeeded in persuading her to marry the rich poet,
though he was a cripple, rather than to bury herself, so young, in a
convent of Ursulines or Bernardines, even were the convent in Paris.

At the death of the poet Scarron (who when he married, and when he died,
possessed only a life annuity), Mademoiselle d'Aubigne, once more in
poverty, found in Mademoiselle de l'Enclos a generous and persevering
friend, who at once offered her her house and table. Mademoiselle
d'Aubigne passed eight or ten months in the intimate society of this
philosophical woman. But her conscience, or her prudery, not permitting
her to tolerate longer a manner of life in which she seemed to detect
license, she quitted Ninon, advising her to renounce coquetry, whilst the
other was advising her to abandon herself to it.

There, where Madame Scarron found the tune of good society with wit, she
looked upon herself as in her proper sphere, as long as no open scandal
was brought to her notice. She consented still to remain her friend; but
the fear of passing for an approver or an accomplice prevented her from
remaining if there were any publicity. It was not exac