documents, the term of
excessive favour. A letter from her to her husband said: "I have just
given myself a maid of honour, wishing to spare Madame de Maintenon the
trouble, or the pleasure, of giving me one herself."

She was summoned to Versailles, as she may very well have expected. The
King, paying no attention to her tears, said to her: "I believed in your
affection; I have done everything to deserve it; it is lamentable to me
to be unable to count on it longer. Your cruel letter is in Madame de
Maintenon's hands. She will let you read it again before committing it
to the fire, and I beg you to inform her what is the harm she has done
you."

"Madame," said Madame de Maintenon to her, when she saw her before her,
"when your amiable mother left this Court, where the slightest prosperity
attracts envy, I promised her to take some care of your childhood, and I
have kept my word.

"I have always treated you with gentleness and consideration; whence
proceeds your hate against me of to-day? Is your young heart capable of
it? I believed you to be a model of gratitude and goodness."

"Madame," replied the young Princess, weeping, "deign to pardon this
imprudence of mine and to reconcile me with the King, whom I love so
much."

"I have not the credit which you assume me to have," replied the lady in
waiting, coldly. "Except for the extreme kindness of the King you would
not be where you are, and you take it ill that I should be where I am! I
have neither desired nor solicited the arduous rank that I occupy; I need
resignation and obedience to support such a burden." Madame de Maintenon
resumed her work. The Princess, not daring to interrupt her silence,
made the bow that was expected of her and withdrew.

The Marquis de Louvois, when he read what his own son-in-law dared to
write of the monarch, grew pale and swooned away with grief. He cast
himself several times before the feet of his master, asking now the
punishment and now the pardon of a criminal and a madman.

"I believed myself to be loved by your family," cried the King. "What
must I do, then, to be loved? And, great God! with what a set I am
surrounded!"

All these things transpired. Soon we saw the father of the audacious De
Liancourt arrive like a man bereft of his wits. He ran to precipitate
himself at the feet of the King.

"M. de La Rochefoucauld," said the prince to him, "I was ignorant, until
this day, that I was lacking in what is called martial