ince from morning to night I breathe that voluptuous air of independence
which refreshes the blood, and puts in play its circulation. I am
morally the same person whom you came to see in the pretty little house
in the Rue de Tournelles. My dressing-gown, as you well know, was my
preferred and chosen garb. To-day, as then, Madame la Marquise, I should
choose to place on my escutcheon the Latin device of the towns of San
Marino and Lucca,--Libertas. You have complimented me on my beauty; I
congratulate you upon yours, and I am surprised that you have so kept and
preserved it in the midst of the constraints and servitude that grandeur
and greatness involve.

MADAME DE MAINTENON.--At the commencement, I argued as you argue, and
believed that I should never get to the year's end without disgust.
Little by little I imposed silence upon my emotions and my regrets. A
life of great activity and occupation, by separating us, as it were, from
ourselves, extinguishes those exacting niceties, both of our proper
sensibility, and of our self-conceit. I remembered my sufferings, my
fears, and my privations after the death of that poor man;--[It was so
that she commonly spoke of her husband, Scarron.]--and since labour has
been the yoke imposed by God on every human being, I submitted with a
good grace to the respectable labour of education. Few teachers are
attached to their pupils; I attached myself to mine with tenderness, with
delight. It is true that it was my privilege to find the King's children
amiable and pretty, as few children are.

NINON DE L'ENCLOS.--From the most handsome and amiable man in the world
there could not come mediocre offspring. M. du Maine is your idol; the
King has given him his noble bearing, with his intelligence; and you have
inoculated him with your wit. Is it true that Madame de Montespan is no
longer your friend? That is a rumour which has credit in the capital;
and if the thing is true I regret it, and am sorry for you.

MADAME DE MAINTENON.--Madame de Montespan, as all Paris knows, obtained
my pension for me after the death of the Queen-mother. This service,
comparable with a favour, will always remain in my heart and my memory. I
have thanked her a thousand times for it, and I always shall thank her
for it. At the time when the young Queen of Portugal charged herself
with my fate and fortune, the Marquise, who had known me at the Hotel
d'Albret, desired to retain me in France, where she destined for