contempt for
them, and prevailed on the King not to invite them to Marly in future.
By this conduct she gained everybody's affection.

She was delicate and of rather a weak constitution. Dr. Chirac said in
her last illness that she would recover; and so she probably would have
done if they had not permitted her to get up when the measles had broken
out upon her, and she was in a copious perspiration. Had they not
blooded her in the foot she might have been alive now (1716).
Immediately after the bleeding, her skin, before as red as fire, changed
to the paleness of death, and she became very ill. When they were
lifting her out of bed I told them it was better to let the perspiration
subside before they blooded her. Chirac and Fagon, however, were
obstinate and laughed at me.

Old Maintenon said to me angrily, "Do you think you know better than all
these medical men?"

"No, Madame," I replied; "and one need not know much to be sure that the
inclination of nature ought to be followed; and since that has displayed
itself it would be better to let it have way, than to make a sick person
get up in the midst of a perspiration to be blooded."

She shrugged up her shoulders ironically. I went to the other side and
said nothing.

SECTION XIV.--THE FIRST DAUPHIN.

All that was good in the first Dauphin came from his preceptor; all that
was bad from himself. He never either loved or hated any one much, and
yet he was very wicked. His greatest pleasure was to do something to vex
a person; and immediately afterwards, if he could do something very
pleasing to the same person, he would set about it with great
willingness. In every respect he was of the strangest temper possible:
when one thought he was good-humoured, he was angry; and when one
supposed him to be ill-humoured, he was in an amiable mood. No one could
ever guess him rightly, and I do not believe that his like ever was or
ever will be born. It cannot be said that he had much wit; but still
less was he a fool. Nobody was ever more prompt to seize the ridiculous
points of anything in himself or in others; he told stories agreeably;
he was a keen observer, and dreaded nothing so much as to be one day
King: not so much from affection for his father, as from a dread of the
trouble of reigning, for he was so extremely idle that he neglected all
things; and he would have preferred his ease to all the kingdoms and
empires of the earth. He could remain for a whole day