she says, on her old chateau of Maintenon; do not deprive her of this
delight. By making her lady in waiting, you would be disobliging her."

"She will accept out of courtesy," he said to me, putting on an air of
mockery. And as the time for the Council was noted by him on my clock,
he went away without adding more.

Since M. le Duc du Maine had grown up, and Mademoiselle de Nantes had
been confided to the Marquise de Montchevreuil, Madame de Maintenon
continued to occupy her handsome apartment on the Princes' Court. There
she received innumerable visits, she paid assiduous court to the Queen,
who had suddenly formed a taste for her, and took her on her walks and
her visits to the communities; but this new Marquise saw me rarely. Since
the affair of the vine-grower, killed on the road, she declared that I
had insulted her before everybody, and that I had ordered her imperiously
to return to my carriage, as though she had been a waiting-maid, or some
other menial. Her excessive sensibility readily afforded her this
pretext, so that she neglected and visibly overlooked me.

As she did not come to me, I betook myself to her at a tolerably early
hour, before the flood of visitors, and started her on the history of the
lady in waiting.

"His Majesty has spoken of it to me," she said, "as of a thing possible;
but I do not think there is anything settled yet in the matter."

"Will you accept," I asked her, "supposing the King to insist?"

"I should like a hundred times better," she replied, "to go and live in
independence in my little kingdom of Maintenon, and with my own hands