ping to her about the King's amours. She ferreted out all
the secret details, all the petty circumstances, and with such dangerous
material troubled the mind and destroyed the repose of her mistress, who
wept unceasingly, and became visibly changed.

La Molina, enriched and almost wealthy, was sent back to Spain, much to
the grief of Maria Theresa, who for several days after her departure
could neither eat nor sleep.

At the same time, the King got rid of that little she-dwarf, named
Mexica, in whose insufferable talk and insufferable presence the Queen
took delight. But the sly little wretch escaped during the journey, and
managed to get back to the princess again, hidden in some box or basket.
The Queen was highly delighted to see her again; she pampered her
secretly in her private cabinet with the utmost mystery, giving up every
moment that she could spare.

One day, by way of a short cut, the King was passing through the Queen's
closet, when he heard the sound of coughing in one of the cupboards.
Turning back, he flung it open, where, huddled up in great confusion, he
found Mexica.

"What!" cried his Majesty; "so you are back again? When and how did you
come?"

In a feeble voice Mexica answered, "Sire, please don't send me away from
the Queen any more, and she will never complain again about Madame de
Montespan."

The King laughed at this speech, and then came and repeated it to me. I
laughed heartily, too, and such a treaty of peace seemed to contain queer
compensation clauses: Madame de Montespan and Mexica were mutually bound
over to support each other; the spectacle was vastly droll, I vow.

Besides her little dwarf, the Queen had a fool named Tricominy. This
quaint person was permitted to utter everywhere and to everybody in
incoherent fashion the pseudo home-truths that passed through his head.
One day he went up to the grande Mademoiselle de Montpensier, and said to
her before everybody, "Since you are so anxious to get married, marry me;
then that will be a man-fool and a woman-fool." The Princess tried to
hit him, and he took refuge behind the Queen's chair.

Another time, to M. Letellier, Louvois's brother and Archbishop of
Rheims, he said, "Monseigneur, do let me ascend the pulpit in your
Cathedral, and I will preach modesty and humanity to you." When the
little Duc d'Anjou, that pretty, charming child, died of suppressed
measles, the Queen was inconsolable, and the King, good father that