hours in my closet,” she wrote to Madame de St. Geran; “he is the most amiable man in his kingdom. I spoke to him of Father Bourdaloue. He listened to me attentively. Perhaps he is not so far from thinking of his salvation as the court suppose. He has good sentiments and frequent reactions towards God.” “The star of Quanto (Madame de Montespan) is paling,” writes Madame de Sevigne to her daughter; “there are tears, natural pets, affected gayeties, poutings--in fact, my dear, all is coming to an end. People look, observe, imagine, believe that there are to be seen as it were rays of light upon faces which, a month ago, were thought to be unworthy of comparison with others. If Quanto had hidden her face with her cap at Easter in the year she returned to Paris, she would not be in the agitated state in which she now is. The spirit, indeed, was willing, but great is human weakness; one likes to make the most of a remnant of beauty. This is an economy which ruins rather than enriches.” “Madame de Montespan asks advice of me,” said Madame de Maintenon; “I speak to her of God, and she thinks I have some understanding with the king; I was present yesterday at a very animated conversation between them. I wondered at the king’s patience, and at the rage of that vain creature. It all ended with these terrible words: ‘I have told you already, madame; I will not be interfered with.’” Henceforth Madame de Montespan “interfered with” the king. He gave the new dauphiness Madame de Maintenon as her mistress of the robes. “I am told,” writes Madame de Sevigne, “that the king’s conversations do nothing but increase and improve, that they last from six to ten o’clock, that the daughter-in-law goes occasionally to pay them a shortish visit, that they are found each in a big chair, and that, when the visit is over, the talk is resumed. The lady is no longer accosted without awe and respect, and the ministers pay her the court which the rest do. No friend was ever so careful and attentive as the king is to her; she makes him acquainted with a perfectly new line of country--I mean the intercourse of friendship and conversation, without chicanery and without constraint; he appears to be charmed with it.”