This language, so clear in its import to the reader, did not entirely satisfy Mademoiselle. The poor Princess was ever expecting an avowal or caresses which never came. Lauzun acted the disinterested friend, the person who was entirely out of the running, and he detailed all the reasons which made an unequal marriage distasteful to him. Far from seeking her, he held himself at a respectful distance when he met her. "It was I," says she, "who sought him." His reserve and his reticence added fuel to the flames, and this diverted him, but for the moment he did not dare to promise himself anything more than greater credit at Court. In the meantime, the Duchesse de Longueville[216] wished to establish the Count de Saint-Paul, the one of her sons who resembled "infinitely" La Rochefoucauld. In spite of the great difference in age--her son was only twenty--she thought of Mademoiselle, who remained by far the best match in the kingdom, and commenced overtures. These were eluded, but with a gentleness which astonished the social world. Mademoiselle had her reasons: "For myself, who had my own desires buried in my heart, it did not at all vex me that the report should be spread that there was question of marrying me to M. de Longueville.[217] It occurred to me that this might in some measure accustom people to my future action." For once, the diplomacy of Mademoiselle did not prove a failure, and her calculations were found to be justified. Some days later, when the affair was being discussed before Lauzun, one of his friends, who had perceived that the Princess was listening with pleasure, asked him why he did not try his fortune.[218] Others joined in the suggestion and all assured him that nothing was impossible for a man so advanced in the good graces of the King. Lauzun expressed himself shocked at the idea of an alliance with Mademoiselle; but on returning to his lodging, he ruminated the entire night upon this conversation, and from that time the thought did not appear to him so chimerical. It was necessary, however, to delay the assurance; the King led the Court into Flanders and gave the command of the escort to his favourite. This was a political journey. Spain had been vanquished almost without resistance in the war of Devolution[219] (1667-1668). Louis XIV. deemed it useful to display French royalty in all its pomp to the populations lately united with his kingdom, by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (May 2, 1668), and all prepared to make a fine figure in a spectacle whose strangeness finds nothing analogous in modern life. In 1658, Loret the journalist had valued at about twelve hundred souls (the servitors were not included) the convoy formed by the Court at its departure for Lyons. This figure was certainly surpassed in 1670, when the royal family alone, more than complete, since it included Mme. de Montespan and Mlle. de La Valliere, took in their train a suite of several thousand persons, not counting the army of escorts.