arties is generally the ruin of all
The wisest fool he ever saw in his life
Those who carry more sail than ballast
Thought he always stood in need of apologies
Transitory honour is mere smoke
Treated him as she did her petticoat
Useful man in a faction because of his wonderful complacency
Vanity to love to be esteemed the first author of things
Verily believed he was really the man which he affected to be
Virtue for a man to confess a fault than not to commit one
We are far more moved at the hearing of old stories
Weakening and changing the laws of the land
Who imagine the head of a party to be their master
Whose vivacity supplied the want of judgment
Wisdom in affairs of moment is nothing without courage
With a design to do good, he did evil
Yet he gave more than he promised
You must know that, with us Princes, words go for nothing

MEMOIRS OF MADAME LA MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN

Written by Herself

Being the Historic Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Madame de Montespan----Etching by Mercier

Hortense Mancini----Drawing in the Louvre

Madame de la Valliere----Painting by Francois

Moliere----Original Etching by Lalauze

Boileau----Etching by Lalauze

A French Courtier----Photogravure from a Painting

Madame de Maintenon----Etching by Mercier from Painting by Hule

Charles II.----Original Etching by Ben Damman

Bosseut----Etching by Lalauze

Louis XIV. Knighting a Subject----Photogravure from a Rare Print

A French Actress----Painting by Leon Comerre

Racine----Etching by Lalauze

BOOK 1.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

Historians have, on the whole, dealt somewhat harshly with the
fascinating Madame de Montespan, perhaps taking their impressions from
the judgments, often narrow and malicious, of her contemporaries. To help
us to get a fairer estimate, her own "Memoirs," written by herself, and
now first given to readers in an English dress, should surely serve.
Avowedly compiled in a vague, desultory way, with no particular regard to
chronological sequence, these random recollections should interest us, in
the first place, as a piece of unconscious self-portraiture. The cynical
Court lady, whose beauty bewitched a great King, and whose ruthless
sarcasm made Duchesses quail, is here drawn for us in vivid fashion by
her own hand, and while concerned with depicting other figures she really
portrays her own. Certainly, in these Memoirs she is gene