isoner, ever
masked, was taken with him, and was treated on the journey with the
highest respect. A well-furnished chamber was provided for him in that
immense chateau. The governor himself brought him his food, and stood
respectfully like a servile attendant while he ate. The captive was
extremely fond of fine linen and lace, and was very attentive to his
personal appearance. Upon his death the walls of his chamber were
rubbed down and whitewashed. Even the tiles of the floor were removed,
lest he might have concealed a note beneath them.

It is very remarkable that, while it can not be doubted that the
prisoner was a person of some great importance, no such personage
disappeared from Europe at that time. It is a plausible supposition
that the king, unwilling to consign his own son to death, sent him to
life-long imprisonment; and that the report of his death by a
contagious disease was circulated that the mother might be saved the
anguish of knowing the dreadful fate of her child. Still there are
many difficulties connected with this explanation, and there is none
other which has ever satisfied public curiosity.

Madame de Montespan had eight children, who were placed under the care
of Madame de Maintenon. Her eldest son, Count de Vixen, died in his
eleventh year. Her second son, the Duke de Maine, was a lad of
remarkable character and attainments. He loved Madame de Maintenon. He
did not love his mother. Unfeelingly he reproached her with his
ignoble birth. Madame de Montespan, though still a fine-looking woman,
brilliant, witty, and always conspicuous for the splendor of her
equipage and her attire, felt every hour embittered by the
consciousness that her power over the king had passed away. She
regarded the serious, thoughtful Madame de Maintenon as her successful
rival, though her social relations with the king were entirely above
reproach.

The character of the discarded favorite is developed by the measure
she adopted to lure the susceptible and unprincipled monarch from the
very agreeable society of Madame de Maintenon. In the department of
Provence there was a young lady but eighteen years of age, Mary
Angelica Roussille. She was of such wonderful beauty that its fame had
reached Paris. Her parents had educated her with the one sole object
of rendering her as fascinating as possible. They wished to secure for
her the position of a maid of honor to the queen, hoping that by so
doing she would attract the fa