ng.

The King received him with an easy, kind air; he, always a flatterer with
his lips, cast himself ten times on his knees before the prince, and
gained nothing by all these demonstrations. He went to rejoin
Mademoiselle on the following day at Choisy, and dared to scold her for
having constructed and even bought this pretty pleasure-house.

"This must have cost treasures," said he. "Had you not parks and
chateaus enough? It would have been better to keep all these sums and
give them to me now."

After this exordium, he set himself to criticise the coiffure of the
Queen, on account of the coloured knots that he had remarked in it.

"But you mean, then, to satirise me personally," said the Princess to
him, "since you see my hair dressed in the same fashion, and I am older
than my cousin!

"What became of you on leaving the King?" she asked him. "I waited for
you till two hours after midnight."

"I went," said he, "to visit M. de Louvois, who is not my friend, and who
requires humouring; then to visit M. Colbert, who favours me."

"You ought to have seen Madame de Maintenon, I gave you that advice
before leaving you," she said; "it is to her, above all, that you owe
your liberty."

"But your Madame de Maintenon," he resumed, "is she, too, one of the
powers? Ah, my God! what a new geography since I left these regions ten
years ago!"

To avoid tete-a-tete, M. de Lauzun was always in a surly humour; he put
his left arm into a sling; he never ceased talking of his rheumatism and
his pains.

Mademoiselle learned, now from one person, now from another, that he was
dining to-day with one fair lady, to-morrow with another, and the next
day with a third. She finally understood that she was despised and
tricked; she showed one last generosity (out of pride) towards her former
friend,--solicited for him the title of Duke, and begged him, for the
future, to arrange his life to please himself, and to let her alone.

The Marquis de Lauzun took her at her word, and never forgave her for the
cession of the principalities of Dombes and Eu to M. le Duc du Maine; he
wanted them for himself.

CHAPTER XXII.

Progress of Madame de Maintenon.--The Anonymous Letter.

Since the birth of Mademoiselle de Blois, and the death of Mademoiselle
de Fontanges, the King hardly ever saw me except a few minutes
ceremoniously,--a few minutes before and after supper. He showed himself
always assiduous with Madame de Mainte