ich consisted of the
words: "College of Clermont"--to substitute for it, in letters of gold:
"Royal College of Louis the Great." These items of news reached
Versailles one after the other. The King received them with visible
satisfaction, and if only Pere de la Chaise had known how to profit at
the time by the emotion and sentiment of the prince, he would have
carried off the tall pyramid as an eagle does a sparrow. The confessor,
a man of great circumspection, dared not force his penitent's hand; he
was tactful with him in all things, and the society had the trouble of
its famous cajolery without gaining anything more at the game than
compliments and gold pieces in sufficient plenty.

Some days afterwards the monarch, of his own accord and without any
incentive, remembered the offensive and mortifying pyramid; but Madame de
Maintenon reminded him that it was desirable to wait, for scoffers would
not be wanting to say that this demolition was one of the essential
conditions of the bargain.

The King relished this advice. At the Court one must make haste to
obtain anything; but to be forgotten, a few minutes' delay is sufficient.

[This pyramid was taken down two or three years before the Revolution by
the wish of Louis XVI., after having stood for two hundred
years.--EDITOR'S NOTE.]

CHAPTER XLIII.

Little Opportune.--M. and Madame Bontems.--The Young Moor Weaned.--The
Good Cure.--The Blessed Virgin.--Opportune at the Augustinians of
Meaux.--Bossuet Director.--Mademoiselle Albanier and Leontine.--Flight of
Opportune.--Her Threats of Suicide.--Visit of the Marquise.--Prudence of
the Court.

The poor Queen had had several daughters, all divinely well made and
pretty as little Cupids. They kept in good health up to their third or
fourth year; they went no further. It was as though a fate was over
these charming creatures; so that the King and Queen trembled whenever
the accoucheurs announced a daughter instead of a son.

My readers remember the little negress who was born to the Queen in the
early days,--she whom no one wanted, who was dismissed, relegated,
disinherited, unacknowledged, deprived of her rank and name the very day
of her birth; and who, by a freak of destiny, enjoyed the finest health
in the world, and surmounted, without any precautions or care, all the
difficulties, perils, and ailments of infancy.

M. Bontems, first valet de chambre of the cabinets, served as her
guardian, or curat