with great apparent cordiality, thanked her for
having complied with his entreaties. Even the heart of Madame de
Montespan was touched. She received with words of love and sympathy
the returned fugitive, whose rivalry she no longer feared, and in
whose sad career she perhaps saw mirrored her own future doom.

Madame de Montespan was then in the zenith of her power. The king had
assigned her the beautiful chateau of Clagny, but a short distance
from Versailles. Here she lived in great splendor, entertaining
foreign embassadors, receiving from them costly gifts, and introducing
them to her children as if they were really princes of the blood.

Notwithstanding the corruptions of the papal Church, there were in
that Church many faithful ministers of Jesus Christ. Some of them, in
their preaching, inveighed very severely against the sinful practices
in the court. Not only Madame de Montespan, but the king, often knew
that they were directly referred to. But the guilty yet sagacious
monarch carefully avoided any appropriation of the denunciations to
himself. Still, he was so much annoyed that he seriously contemplated
urging Madame de Montespan to retire to a convent. He even authorized
the venerable Bossuet, then Bishop of Condom, to call upon Madame de
Montespan, and suggest in his name that she should withdraw from the
court and retire to the seclusion of the cloister. But the haughty
favorite, conscious of the power of her charms, and knowing full well
that the king had only submitted to the suggestion, peremptorily
refused. She judged correctly. The king was well pleased to have her
remain.

The preparations which the king was making for the invasion of Holland
greatly alarmed the Dutch government. France had become powerful far
beyond any other Continental kingdom. The king had the finest army in
Europe. Turenne, Conde, Vauban, ranked among the ablest generals and
engineers of any age. While Louis XIV. was apparently absorbed in his
pleasures, Europe was surprised to see vast trains of artillery and
ammunition wagons crowding the roads of his northern provinces. In his
previous campaign, Louis had taken Flanders in three months, and
Franche-Comte in three weeks. These rapid conquests had alarmed
neighboring nations, and Holland, Switzerland, and England had entered
into an alliance to resist farther encroachments, should they be
attempted.

Louis affected to be very angry that such a feeble state as Holland
should