ely, and kissing
his hand to the Princesses, who were called his own daughters. He
thought it a joke himself, and always turned aside a little to laugh in
his sleeve.

SECTION VI.--MADAME DE MAINTENON.

The marriage of Louis XIV. with old Maintenon proves how impossible it is
to escape one's fate. The King said one day to the Duc de Crequi and to
M. de La Rochefoucauld, long before he knew Mistress Scarron, "I am
convinced that astrology is false. I had my nativity cast in Italy, and
I was told that, after living to an advanced age, I should be in love
with an old ----- to the last moment of my existence. I do not think
there is any great likelihood of that." He laughed most heartily as he
said this; and yet the thing has taken place.

The history of Theodora, in Procopius, bears a singular resemblance to
that of Maintenon. In the history of Sweden, too, there is a similar
character in the person of Sigbritta, a Dutch woman, who lived during the
reign of Christian IL, King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, who bears so
great a likeness to Maintenon that I was struck with it as soon as I read
it. I cannot imagine how they came to permit its publication. It is
fortunate for the Abbe Vertot, who is the author, that the King does not
love reading, otherwise he would certainly have been sent to the
Bastille. Several persons thought that the Abbe had invented it by way
of a joke, but he swears by all that is good that he found it in the
annals of Sweden. The old woman cannot have read it either, for she is
too much occupied in reading the letters written to her from Paris,
relating all that is going on there and at the Court. Sometimes the
packets have consisted of twenty or thirty sheets; she kept them or
showed them to the King, according as she liked or disliked the persons.

She was not deficient in wit, and could talk very well whenever she
chose. She did not like to be called La Marquise, but preferred the
simpler and shorter title of Madame de Maintenon.

She did not scruple to display openly the hatred she had for me. For
example, when the Queen of England came to Marly, and went out on foot or
in the carriage with the King, on their return the Queen, the Dauphine,
the Princess of England, and all the Princesses, went into the King's
room; I alone was excluded.

It was with great regret that I gave up my Maids of Honour. I had four,
sometimes five of them, with their governess and sub-governess;