ctre that impresses as wearing rags under a gorgeous robe, lurks
among the foliage of the quiet _bosquet_ beyond the orangerie. It is the
infamous Madame de la Motte, chief of adventuresses, and it was in that
secluded grove that her tool, Cardinal de Rohan, had his pretended
interview with the Queen. Poor, perfidious Contesse! what an existence
of alternate beggarly poverty and beggarly riches was hers before that
last scene of all when she lay broken and bruised almost beyond human
semblance in that dingy London courtyard beneath the window from which,
in a mad attempt to escape arrest, she had thrown herself.

Through the Royal salons flits a presence whereat the shades of the
Royal Princesses look askance: that of the frolicsome, good-natured,
irresponsible Du Barry. A soulless ephemera she, with no ambitions or
aspirations, save that, having quitted the grub stage, she desires to be
as brilliant a butterfly as possible. Close in attendance on her moves
an ebon shadow--Zamora, the ingrate foundling who, reared by the
Duchesse, swore that he would make his benefactress ascend the scaffold,
and kept his oath. For our last sight of the prodigal, warm-hearted Du
Barry, plaything of the aged King, is on the guillotine, where in
agonies of terror she fruitlessly appeals to her executioner's clemency.

But of all the bygone dames who haunt the grand Chateau, the only one I
detest is probably the most irreproachable of all--Madame de Maintenon.
There is something so repulsively sanctimonious in her aspect, something
so crafty in the method wherewith, under the cloak of religion, she
wormed her way into high places, ousting--always in the name of
propriety--those who had helped her. Her stepping-stone to Royal favour
was handsome, impetuous Madame de Montespan, who, taking compassion on
her widowed poverty, appointed Madame Scarron, as she then was,
governess of her children, only to find her _protegee_ usurp her place
both in the honours of the King and in the affections of their children.

The natural heart rebels against the "unco guid," and Madame de
Maintenon, with her smooth expression, double chin, sober garments and
ever-present symbols of piety, revolts me. I know it is wrong. I know
that historians laud her for the wholesome influence she exercised upon
the mind of a king who had grown timorous with years; that the dying
Queen declared that she owed the King's kindness to her during the last
twenty years of her li