etter
Madame received from her "little sister" pleaded for an invitation to
Court, until at last Mademoiselle de Nesle found herself the guest of
Louis' mistress in his palace.

Thus the first important step was taken. The rest would be easy; for
Mademoiselle never doubted for a moment her ability to carry out her
programme to its splendid climax. It was certainly a bold, almost
impudent design; for the girl of the convent had few attractions to
appeal to a monarch so surrounded by beauty as the King of France. What
the courtiers saw, says the Duc de Richelieu, was "a long neck clumsily
set on the shoulders, a masculine figure and carriage, features not
unlike those of Madame de Mailly, but thinner and harder, which
exhibited none of her flashes of kindness, her tenderness of passion."

Even her manners seemed calculated to repel, rather than attract the man
she meant to conquer; for she treated him, from the first, with a
familiarity amounting almost to rudeness, and a wilfulness to which he
was by no means accustomed. There was, at any rate, something novel and
piquant in an attitude so different from that of all other Court ladies.
Resentment was soon replaced by interest, and interest by attraction;
until Louis, before he was aware of it, began to find the society of the
impish, mocking, defiant maid from the convent more to his taste than
that of the most fascinating women of his Court.

The more he saw of her, the more effectually he came under her spell.
Each day found her in some new and tantalising mood; and as she drew him
more and more into her toils, she kept him there by her ingenuity in
devising novel pleasures and entertainments for him, until, within a
month of setting eyes on her, he was telling Madame de Mailly, he "loved
her sister more than herself." One of the first evidences of his favour
was to provide her with a husband in the Comte de Vintimille, and a
dower of two hundred thousand livres. He promised her a post as
lady-in-waiting to Madame la Dauphine and gave her a sumptuous suite of
rooms at Versailles. He even conferred on her husband the honour of
handing him his shirt on the wedding-night, an evidence of high favour
such as no other bridegroom had enjoyed.

It was thus little surprise to anyone to find the Comtesse-bride not
only her sister's most formidable rival, but actually usurping her place
and privileges. Nor was it long before this place, on which she had set
her heart first wi