arious
reasonings were like so many actual stings to the king's pride; but when
he had carefully, in his own mind, gone over all the various causes of
complaint, Louis was surprised, upon due reflection--in other words,
after the wound has been dressed--to find that there were other causes
of suffering, secret, unendurable, and unrevealed. There was one
circumstance he dared not confess, even to himself; namely, that the
acute pain from which he was suffering had its seat in his heart. The
fact is, he had permitted his heart to be gratified by La Valliere's
innocent confusion. He had dreamed of a pure affection--of an affection
for Louis the man, and not the sovereign--of an affection free from
all self-interest; and his heart, simpler and more youthful than he had
imagined it to be, had to meet that other heart that had revealed
itself to him by its aspirations. The commonest thing in the complicated
history of love, is the double inoculation of love to which any two
hearts are subjected; the one loves nearly always before the other, in
the same way that the latter finishes nearly always by loving after the
other. In this way, the electric current is established, in proportion
to the intensity of the passion which is first kindled. The more
Mademoiselle de la Valliere showed her affection, the more the king's
affection had increased. And it was precisely that which had annoyed his
majesty. For it was now fairly demonstrated to him, that no sympathetic
current had been the means of hurrying his heart away in its course,
because there had been no confession of love in the case--because the
confession was, in fact, an insult towards the man and towards the
sovereign; and finally, because--and the word, too, burnt like a hot
iron--because, in fact, it was nothing but a mystification after all.
This girl, therefore, who, in strictness, could not lay claim to
beauty, or birth, or great intelligence--who had been selected by Madame
herself, on account of her unpretending position, had not only aroused
the king's regard, but had, moreover, treated him with disdain--he, the
king, a man who, like an eastern potentate, had but to bestow a glance,
to indicate with his finger, to throw his handkerchief. And, since the
previous evening, his mind had been so absorbed with this girl that he
could think and dream of nothing else. Since the previous evening his
imagination had been occupied by clothing her image with charms to which
she