Like most great workers, Louis XIV. was orderly and methodical in everything. He had fixed hours for his ministers and for appearing in public, hours for his wife and for his mistresses. It could always be known where he was and what he was doing. Mme. de Montespan's hour was in the afternoon. With the complicity of a chambermaid Lauzun was introduced into the room, concealed himself under the bed, and by keeping his ears open soon "cleared his mind." Mme. de Montespan did not forget him in her conversation, but he heard himself severely criticised and his bad character exploited; the slight dependence which could be placed upon him and his arrogance towards Louvois were also emphasised. All these charges were made with so much wit that the King, carried away, replied with almost as little charity. The listener under the bed, through rage and constraint, was thrown into a "great perspiration." Finally the King returned to his own affairs and Mme. de Montespan to hers, which were to attire themselves for a ballet. After her toilet, Madame found Lauzun at her door. He offered his hand and demanded if he dared flatter himself that she had remembered him with the King. She assured him that she had not failed to do so, and expatiated upon "all the services which she had just rendered him." M. de Lauzun permitted her to finish, only forcing her to walk slowly, and then softly in a low voice repeated, word for word, all that had passed between the King and herself, without leaving out a single phrase; and always retaining the sweet and gentle voice, he proceeded to call her the most infamous names, assured her that he would "spoil her face," and led her most unwillingly to the ballet, more dead than alive, and almost without consciousness. The King and Mme. de Montespan both believed that it was only the devil himself who could have so accurately reported what had been said. Royalty and the mistress were in trouble, and in a "horrible rage"; they had not yet recovered their equanimity when the favourite recommenced his intrigues. Three days after this apparently inexplicable event, he came to break his sword before the King, declaiming that he would no longer serve a prince who forswore his word for a ---- (the word cannot be repeated). The conduct of Louis XIV. at this juncture has remained famous. He opened the window and threw out his cane, saying that he should regret having struck a gentleman. The next day Lauzun found himself in the Bastile, and it might have been supposed for a long sojourn, under a monarch who never as a child had pardoned a lack of respect. The public was still more astonished to learn, at the end of the second month, that it was the King who sought pardon, and Lauzun who held his head high, refusing recompense and asserting that the prison was preferable to the Court.