And Madame la Marquise glanced at her face in the mirror, and wished she knew Madame de Maintenon's secret for the Breuvage Indien; wished she had one of the _clefs de faveur_ to admit her to the Grande Salle du Parlement; wished she had the _couronne d'Agrippine_ her friend Athénaïs had just shown her; wished Le Brun were not now occupied on the ceiling of the King's Grande Galerie, and were free to paint the frescoes of her own new-built chapel; wished a thousand unattainable things, as spoilt children of fortune will do, and swept down her château staircase a little out of temper--she could not have told why--to receive her guests at a fête given in honor of the marriage of Mademoiselle de Blois and the Prince de Conti. There was the young Comte de Vermandois, who would recognize in the Dauphin no superiority save that of his "_frère aine_;" there was "_le petit bossu_," Prince Eugene, then soliciting the rochet of a Bishop, and equally ridiculed when he sought a post in the army; there was M. de Louvois, who had just signed the order for the Dragonades; there was the Palatine de Bavière, with her German brusquerie, who had just clumsily tried to insult Madame de Montespan by coming into the salon with a great turnspit, led by a similar ribbon and called by the same name, in ridicule of the pet Montespan poodle; there was La Montespan herself, with her lovely gold hair, her dove's eyes, and her serpent's tongue; there was Madame de Sévigné and Madame de Grignan the Duchesse de Richelieu and the Duchesse de Lesdiguières; there was Bussy Rabutin and Hamilton. Who was there not that was brilliant, that was distinguished, that was high in rank and famed in wit at the fête of Madame la Marquise?--Madame la Marquise, who floated through the crowd that glittered in her salon and gardens, who laughed and smiled, showing her dazzling white teeth, who had a little Cupid gleaming with jewels (emblematic enough of Cupid as he was known at Versailles) to present the Princesse de Conti with a bridal bouquet whose flowers were of pearls and whose leaves were of emeralds; who piqued herself that the magnificence of her fête was scarcely eclipsed by His Majesty himself; who yielded the palm neither to La Vallière's lovely daughter, nor to her friend Athénaïs, nor to any one of the beauties who shone with them, and whose likeness by Mignard laughed down from the wall where it hung, matchless double of her own matchless self.