amented with quantities of little
curls, diamonds, and jewelled pins, she had the impertinence to appear at
Court wearing a huge wig, a grotesque travesty of my coiffure. I was
told of it. I entered the King's apartment without deigning to salute
Madame, or even to look at her.

I had also been told that, in society, she referred to me as "the
Montespan woman." I met her one day in company with a good many other
people, and said to her:

"Madame, you managed to give up your religion in order to marry a French
prince; you might just as well have left behind your gross Palatine
vulgarity also. I have the honour to inform you that, in the exalted
society to which you have been admitted, one can no more say 'the
Montespan woman,' than one can say 'the Orleans woman.' I have never
offended you in the slightest degree, and I fail to see why I should have
been chosen as the favoured object of your vulgar insults."

She blushed, and ventured to inform me that this way of expressing
herself was a turn of speech taken from her own native language, and that
by saying "the," as a matter of course "Marquise" was understood.

"No, madame," I said, without appearing irritated; "in Paris, such an
excuse as that is quite inadmissible, and since you associate with
turnspits, pray ask your cooks, and they will tell you."

Fearing to quarrel with the King, she was obliged to be more careful, but
to change one's disposition is impossible, and she has loathed and
insulted me ever since. Her husband, who himself probably taught her to
do so, one day tried to make apologies for what he ruefully termed her
reprehensible conduct. "There, there, it doesn't matter," I said to him;
"it is easier to offend me than to deceive me. Allow me to quote to you
the speech of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, 'You had a charming and
accomplished wife, you ought to have prevented her from being poisoned,
and then we should not have had this hag at Court.'"

CHAPTER XLII.

Madame de Montespan's Father-confessor.--He Alters His Opinion.--Madame
de Maintenon Is Consulted.--A General on Theology.--A Country
Priest.--The Marquise Postpones Her Repentance and Her Absolution.

My father-confessor, who since my arrival at Court had never vexed or
thwarted me, suddenly altered his whole manner towards me, from which I
readily concluded that the Queen had got hold of him. This priest, of
gentle, easy-going, kindly nature, never spoke to me except in a tone o