ations with England, especially
those relating to the important results he had obtained through the
Duchess of Portsmouth at the time of the Dutch war, and during the whole
of his embassy; and that after such services rendered by her, it would
be dishonour to himself to forget them. Louvois, who remembered it all
very well, after Courtin had reminded him of several important facts,
suspended the execution of the _lettre de cachet_, and gave the King an
account of the interview, and of what Courtin had said; and upon such
testimony, which recalled several facts to the King's mind, he ordered
the _lettre de cachet_ to be thrown into the fire, and had the Duchess
of Portsmouth admonished to be more reserved in future. She defended
herself stoutly from what had been imputed to her, and, true or false,
she took heed in future of the nature of the conversation which was held
at her house.

Louis XIV., become a bigot and a persecutor, suffered none but silent
and submissive slaves to surround him. The Duchess showed herself docile
to Courtin's advice, and passed in profound obscurity the many long
years which, remained to her of existence. Saint-Simon and Dangeau say
nothing more about her, save to enregister the meagre favours which the
Court measured out with an avaricious hand, and that woman, to whom was
owing the signature of the Treaty of Nimeguen, was reduced in 1689 to
solicit a pension of 20,000 livres, which was considerably diminished
when the disasters soon afterwards happened which impoverished the
French nation.

Such was the parsimony exercised by the great Monarch towards a woman
who had laboured strenuously for French interests so long as her sway
over Charles of England lasted, and which sway only ceased with his
life. "Therein she employed unceasingly all her talent for politics, all
her fascinations, all her wit," says the English chronicler already
cited, and whose object has been, according to his translator, anonymous
like himself, to demonstrate that if Charles II. acted in a way so
little conformable to the interests not only of several foreign states,
but still more of his own kingdom, it was the Duchess of Portsmouth who
urged him to it, through the passion with which she had inspired him, by
her cunning, and the power she possessed over his mind. The same
translator afterwards remarks, that "this lady obtained more easily from
the King in a moment and with a _coup de langue_ things the most
unreas