adame
de Maintenon," Madame de Sevigne writes, "become more and more frequent,
and they last from six in the morning to ten at night, she sitting in
one arm-chair, he in another."

In vain Montespan stormed and wept in her fits of jealous rage; in vain
did the beautiful de Fontanges seek to lure him to her arms, until death
claimed her so tragically before she had well passed her twentieth
birthday. The King had had more than enough of such Delilahs. Pleasure
had palled; peace was what he craved now--salve for his seared
conscience.

When Madame de Maintenon was appointed principal lady-in-waiting to the
Dauphine and when, a little later, Louis' unhappy Queen drew her last
breath in her arms, Montespan at last realised that her day of power was
over. She wrote letters to the King begging him not to withdraw his
affection from her, but to these appeals Louis was silent; he handed
the letters to Madame de Maintenon to answer as she willed.

The Court was quick to realise that a new star had risen; ministers and
ambassadors now flocked to the new divinity to consult her and to win
her favour. The governess was hailed as the new Queen of Louis and of
France. The climax came when the King was thrown one day from his horse
while hunting, and broke his arm. It was Madame de Maintenon alone who
was allowed to nurse him, and who was by his side night and day. Before
the arm was well again she was standing, thickly veiled, before an
improvised altar in the King's study, with Louis by her side, while the
words that made them man and wife were pronounced by Archbishop de
Harlay.

The prison-child had now reached the loftiest pinnacle in the land of
her birth. Though she wore no crown, she was Queen of France, wielding a
power which few throned ladies have ever known. Princes and Princesses
rose to greet her entry with bows and curtsies; the mother of the coming
King called her "aunt"; her rooms, splendid as the King's, adjoined his;
she had the place of honour in the King's Council Room; the State's
secrets were in her keeping; she guided and controlled the destinies of
the nation. And all this greatness came to her when she had passed her
fiftieth year, and when all the grace and bloom of youth were but a
distant memory.

The King himself, two years her junior, and still in the prime of his
manhood, was her shadow, paying to the plain, middle-aged woman such
deference and courtesy as he had never shown to the youth and beaut