Fortunately, the latter virtues were deeply ingrained in the breasts of the French gentlemen of this period, and it is not to their discredit if the other faculties, mental and physical, the exercise of which was plainly discouraged by the King, should have so fallen into disuse that their children suffered. The final descendants of four or five generations of those living this absurd life were the _emigres_ of the great Revolution, all heroes, almost all clever, or at least appearing so, and in general people of wit, but without character. This fact can hardly be too much emphasised: never has a monarch laboured with greater skill and method than Louis XIV. in the successful attempt to annihilate the nobility and to ruin its reputation. This is one of the most serious souvenirs of the wars of the Fronde. It was with the women as with the men--the same subjection, the same emptiness of life, from which arose the weakness of Mademoiselle for Mme. de Montespan. The situation of recognised mistress "affects nothing"; Mademoiselle had never considered that the virtue of others concerned her. The novelty of the situation, the unexpected prerogatives accruing to the new position, and the habits resulting, gave rise to some of the most curious incidents of the reign, and also strengthened an intimacy which survived many shocks. As soon as Louis XIV. formally established his mistresses at Court, it had been needful to frame new rules of etiquette. At first these rules were understood rather than formulated, but contemporary writers give evidence of their existence. It was the new regulations which gave scandal, rather than the fact of a weakness too common to all men of all times. The people had found the phrase suitable enough when it ran to gaze on "the three queens" in one carriage; Mlle. de La Valliere and Mme. de Montespan were publicly at the same time occupying the rank of secondary wives to the King. When the royal family made its solemn visits to any of its members who were mortally ill, these two ladies arrived after the King and Queen. Mademoiselle met them at the death-bed of Mme. Henriette; "Mme. de Montespan and La Valliere came." She met them again over the cradle of a daughter of Louis XIV. and of Marie-Therese, who died as an infant. "I found her in the last extremity.... We staid almost the entire night watching her die; Mme. de Montespan and Mme. de La Valliere were also there." The latter escaped from such honours as often as she could. Mme. de Montespan liked them better, and added to them. She had placed herself upon the footing of the Queen in regard to ordinary visits, which she never returned. "Never," says Saint-Simon, "not even to Monsieur or Madame or to the Grande Mademoiselle, or to the Hotel de Conde." The same hauteur was displayed in the manner of receiving the princes and princesses of the blood, and this "exterior of Queen" followed her into the retreat! All were accustomed to it.