and made him give up the purse,
but he did not have him hanged.

The Duchesse de Schomberg was a good deal laughed at because she asked
the King a hundred questions, which is not the fashion here. The King
was not well pleased to be talked to; but he never laughed in any one's
face.

When Louvois proposed to the King for the first time that he should
appoint Madame Dufresnoy, his mistress, a lady of the Queen's bedchamber,
His Majesty replied, "Would you, then, have them laugh at both of us?"
Louvois, however, persisted so earnestly in his request that the King at
length granted it.

The Court of France was extremely agreeable until the King had the
misfortune to marry that old Maintenon; she withdrew him from company,
filled him with ridiculous scruples respecting plays, and told him that
he ought not to see excommunicated persons. In consequence of this she
had a small theatre erected in her own apartments, where plays were acted
twice a week before the King. Instead of the dismissed comedians,

[These dismissed comedians had, as appears by the edition of 1788,
renounced their profession, and had been admitted to the communion.
After that, Madame de Maintenon no longer saw any sin in them.]

she had the Dauphine, my son, the Duc de Berri, and her own nieces, to
play; in her opinion this was much better than the real comedians. The
King, instead of occupying his usual place, was seated behind me in a
corner, near Madame de Maintenon. This arrangement spoilt all, for the
consequence was that few people saw him, and the Court was almost
deserted.

Maintenon told me that the King said to her, "Now that I am old my
children get tired of me and are delighted to find any opportunity of
fixing me here and going elsewhere for their own amusement; Madame alone
stays, and I see that she is glad to be with me still." But she did not
tell me that she had done all in her power to persuade him of the
contrary, and that the King spoke thus by way of reproaching her for the
lies she had invented about me. I learned that afterwards from others.
If the King had been my father I could not have loved him more than I
did; I was always pleased to be with him.

He was fond of the German soldiers, and said that the German horsemen
displayed more grace in the saddle than those of any other nation.

When the King had a design to punish certain libertines, Fagon--[Guy
Crescent Fagon, appointed the King's chief physician in 1693