Memoirs of Madame la Marquise de Montespan — Volume 5

The Prince de Mont-Beliard.--He Agrees to the Propositions Made Him.--The King's Note.--Diplomacy of the Chancellor of England.--Letter from the Marquis de Montespan.--The Duchy...

Two or three days after our arrival at Fontevrault, the King, who loves to know all the geographical details of important places, asked me of the form and particulars of the cel...

Madame de Maintenon was already forty-four years old, and appeared to be only thirty. This freshness, that she owed either to painstaking care or to her happy and quite peculiar...

Madame de Sevigne.--Madame de Grignan.--Madame de Montespan at the Carmelites.--Madame de la Valliere.--These Two Great Ruins Console One Another.--An Angel of Sweetness, Goodne...

The four or five words which had escaped Mademoiselle de Montpensier had remained in the King's recollection. He said to me: "If you had more patience, and a sweeter and more pl...

I wept much during the journey; and to save the spectacle of my grief from the passers-by, I was at the pains to lower the curtains. I passed over in my mind all that the Duches...

Pere de la Chaise has never done me good or ill; I have no motives for conciliating him, no reason to slander him. I am ignorant if he were the least in the world concerned, at...

The King had only caused against his own desire the extreme grief which Mademoiselle felt at the imprisonment of Lauzun. His Majesty was sensible of the wisdom of the resolution...

At the great slaughter of Candia, M. de Vivonne had the pleasure of saving a young Venetian drummer whom he noticed all covered with blood, and senseless, amongst the dead and d...

The King, in his moments of effusion and abandonment (then so full of pleasantness), had said more than once: "If I have any physical beauty, I owe it to the Queen, my mother; i...

The Equipage at Full Speed.--The Poor Vine-grower.--Sensibility of Madame de Maintenon.--Her Popularity.--One Has the Right to Crush a Man Who Will Not Get Out of the Way.--What...

The "Powder of Inheritance."--The Chambre Ardente.--The Comtesse de Soissons's Arrest Decreed.--The Marquise de Montespan Buys Her Superintendence of the Queen's Council.--Madam...

Charles II., King of England.--How Interest Can Give Memory.--His Grievances against France.--The Two Daughters of the Duke of York.--William of Orange Marries One, in Spite of...

Eight months after the wedding of Marie Louise, we witnessed the arrival of Anne Marie Christine, Princess of Bavaria, daughter of the Elector Ferdinand. The King and Monseigneu...

I have related in what manner Charles II., suddenly pronouncing in favour of his nephew, the Prince of Orange, had signed a league with his old enemies, the Dutch, in order to c...

The unfortunate lady, Henrietta of England, had left, at her death, two extremely young girls, one of them, indeed, being still in the cradle. The new Madame was seized with goo...

The Abbe de Brisacier, the famous director of consciences, possessed enough friends and credit to advance young Brisacier, his nephew, to the Queen's household, to whom he had b...

Monsieur, having learnt what his cousin of Montpensier had just done for my Duc du Maine, felt all possible grief and envy at it. He had always looked to inherit from her, and t...