f her letters, Madame de Maintenon speaks of this accident, but
she does not give quite the same account of it. It is natural that
Madame de Montespan seeks to excuse her people and herself if she
can.--EDITOR'S NOTE.]

At Ruel, she dared take the same tone before the Duchesse de Richelieu,
who rebuked her for officiousness, and out of spite, or some other
reason, Madame de Maintenon refused to dine. She had two or three
swooning fits; her tears started afresh four or five times, and the
Marquise d'Hudicourt, who dined only by snatches, went into a corner to
sob and weep along with her.

"Admit, madame," I said then to Madame de Maintenon, "your excessive
grief for an unknown man is singular. He was, perhaps, actually a
dishonest fellow. The accident which you come back to incessantly, and
which distresses me also, is doubtless deplorable; but, after all, it is
not a murder, an ambush, a premeditated assassination. I imagine that if
such a catastrophe had happened elsewhere, and been reported to us in a
gazette or a book, you would have read of it with interest and
commiseration; but we should not have seen you clasp your hands over your
head, turn red and pale, utter loud cries, shed tears, sob, and scold a
coachman, postilions, perhaps even me. The event, would, nevertheless,
be actually the same. Admit, then, madame, and you, too, Madame
d'Hudicourt, that there is an exaggeration in your sorrow, and that you
would have made, both of you, two excellent comedians."

Madame de Maintenon, piqued at these last words, sought to make us
understand, and even make us admit, that there is a great difference
between an event narrated to you by a third party, and an event which one
has seen. Madame de Richelieu shut her mouth pleasantly with these
words: "We know, Madame la Marquise, how much eloquence and wit is yours.
We approve all your arguments, past and to be. Let us speak no further
of an accident which distresses you; and since you require to be
diverted, let us go to the Opera, which is only two leagues off."

She consented to accompany us, for fear of proving herself entirely
ridiculous; but to delay us as much as possible, she required a cup of
chocolate, her favourite dish, her appetite having returned as soon as
she had exhausted the possibilities of her grief.

CHAPTER IV.

Charles II., King of England.--How Interest Can Give Memory.--His
Grievances against France.--The Two Daughters of the Duke of
Yor