nd followed at the top of
his speed in the direction which the young lady had already taken.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE RISING SUN.

The rooms which were inhabited by the lady who had already taken so
marked a position at the court of France were as humble as were her
fortunes at the time when they were allotted to her, but with that rare
tact and self-restraint which were the leading features in her
remarkable character, she had made no change in her living with the
increase of her prosperity, and forbore from provoking envy and jealousy
by any display of wealth or of power. In a side wing of the palace, far
from the central _salons_, and only to be reached by long corridors and
stairs, were the two or three small chambers upon which the eyes, first
of the court, then of France, and finally of the world, were destined to
be turned. In such rooms had the destitute widow of the poet Scarron
been housed when she had first been brought to court by Madame de
Montespan as the governess of the royal children, and in such rooms she
still dwelt, now that she had added to her maiden Francoise d'Aubigny
the title of Marquise de Maintenon, with the pension and estate which
the king's favour had awarded her. Here it was that every day the king
would lounge, finding in the conversation of a clever and virtuous woman
a charm and a pleasure which none of the professed wits of his sparkling
court had ever been able to give to him, and here, too, the more
sagacious of the courtiers were beginning to understand, was the point,
formerly to be found in the magnificent _salons_ of De Montespan, whence
flowed those impulses and tendencies which were so eagerly studied, and
so keenly followed up by all who wished to keep the favour of the king.
It was a simple creed, that of the court. Were the king pious, then let
all turn to their missals and their rosaries. Were he rakish, then who
so rakish as his devoted followers? But woe to the man who was rakish
when he should be praying, or who pulled a long face when the king wore
a laughing one! And thus it was that keen eyes were ever fixed upon
him, and upon every influence that came near him, so that the wary
courtier, watching the first subtle signs of a coming change, might so
order his conduct as to seem to lead rather than to follow.

The young guardsman had scarce ever exchanged a word with this powerful
lady, for it was her taste to isolate herself, and to appear with the
court o