ing had
enjoined the Dauphine always to behave politely to me; she begged me
immediately not to say a word to the King, assuring me that I should soon
see the Dauphine's behaviour changed; and indeed, from that time, the
Dauphine altered her conduct, and lived upon much better terms with me.
If I had complained to the King of the ill treatment I received from the
Dauphine he would have been very angry; but she would not have hated me
the less, and she and her old aunt would have formed means to repay me
double.

Ratzenhausen has the good fortune to be sprung from a very good family;
the King was always glad to see her, because she made him laugh; she also
diverted the Dauphine, and Madame de Berri liked her much, and made her
visit her frequently. It is not surprising that we should be good
friends; we have been so since our infancy, for I was not nine years old
when I first became acquainted with her. Of all the old women I know,
there is not one who keeps up her gaiety like Linor.

I often visited Madame de Maintenon, and did all in my power to gain her
affections, but could never succeed. The Queen of Sicily asked me one
day if I did not go out with the King in his carriage, as when she was
with us. I replied to her by some verses (from Racine's Phedre).

Madame de Torci told this again to old Maintenon, as if it applied to
her, which indeed it did, and the King was obliged to look coldly on me
for some time.

During the last three years of his life I had entirely gained my husband
to myself, so that he laughed at his own weaknesses, and was no longer
displeased at being joked with. I had suffered dreadfully before; but
from this period he confided in me entirely, and, always took my part.
By his death I saw the result of the care and pains of thirty years
vanish. After Monsieur's decease, the King sent to ask me whither I
wished to retire, whether to a convent in Paris, or to Maubuisson, or
elsewhere. I replied that as I had the honour to be of the royal house
I could not live but where the King was, and that I intended to go
directly to Versailles. The King was pleased at this, and came to see
me. He somewhat mortified me by saying that he sent to ask me whither I
wished to go because he had not imagined that I should choose to stay
where he was. I replied that I did not know who could have told His
Majesty anything so false and injurious, and that I had a much more
sincere respect and attachment for