of amusing the antechamber." It required more than seven years of wrath
and humiliation to make her resolve upon quitting the court, in 1691.

The date has never been ascertained exactly of the king's private
marriage with Madame de Maintenon. It took place, probably, eighteen
months or two years after the queen's death; the king was forty-seven,
Madame de Maintenon fifty.

"She had great remains of beauty, bright and sprightly eyes, an
imcomparable grace," says St. Simon, who detested her; "an air of ease,
and yet of restraint and respect; a great deal of cleverness, with a
speech that was sweet, correct, in good terms, and naturally eloquent and
brief."

Madame do La Valliere had held sway over the young and passionate heart
of the prince, Madame de Montespan over the court, Madame de Maintenon
alone established her empire over the man and the king. "Whilst giving
up our heart, we must remain absolute master of our mind," Louis XIV.
had written, "separate our affections from our resolves as a sovereign,
that she who enchants us may never have liberty to speak to us of our
business or of the people who serve us, and that they be two things
absolutely distinct." The king had scrupulously applied this maxim;
Mdlle. de La Valliere had never given a thought to business; Madame de
Montespan had sought only to shine, disputing the influence of Colbert
when he would have put a limit upon her ruinous fancies, leaning for
support at the last upon Louvois, in order to counterbalance the growing
power of Madame de Maintenon; the latter alone had any part in affairs,
a smaller part than has frequently been made out, but important,
nevertheless, and sometimes decisive. Ministers went occasionally to do
their work in her presence with the king, who would turn to her when the