Events moved quietly enough when the Princess one evening in October supplicated the King that there should be no more said of the project. Louis XIV. appeared to be indifferent. Monsieur was at first vexed and then dismissed the subject from his thoughts. Marie-Therese alone, interested neither in her brother-in-law nor in her cousin, "was in despair," relates Mademoiselle, "for she wishes that we should marry and have children." But no one paid much attention to the despair of Marie-Therese. Lauzun approved the course of Mademoiselle and ceased to avoid her. That was all. For an ambitious man, he was not a really clever schemer; he had too great a fear of being duped. He again assumed a sombre attitude and refused to hear the name of the one chosen by Mademoiselle. On a certain Thursday evening, when she had menaced him with the threat of breathing against the mirror and of writing the name of the man she loved, midnight sounded during this contest. "Nothing more can be said," observed Mademoiselle, "for it is already Friday." The next day, taking a sheet of paper, she wrote distinctly, "It is you," and sealed it. "That day I met him only on the way to supper. I said: 'I have the name in my pocket, but I do not wish to give it to you on Friday.' He responded: 'Give it to me! I promise that I will put it under my pillow and that I will not open the paper until midnight has passed.'" She did not trust him, and it did not occur to him to sacrifice a race that had been arranged for the Saturday. "Ah, well, I will wait until Sunday," said Mademoiselle with inconceivable patience, and her only vengeance was to let herself be implored a little, before giving up the paper. The couple were alone in a corner of the fireplace, in the salon of the Queen. "I drew forth the leaf, upon which only a single word was written, which, however, told much; I showed it to him, and then replaced it in my pocket, afterward in my muff. He urged me very strongly to give it to him, saying that his heart was beating rapidly.... Before yielding I said, 'You will reply on the same leaf.'"... In the evening she did not dare to raise her eyes; he declared that she was mocking him, that "he was not sufficiently foolish to be deceived," and this was the theme of the letter which he remitted to her. At the same time, he thought of the prodigious elevation which he was beginning to realise was a possibility before him. He was at last aroused, and could not always refrain from responding seriously to Mademoiselle. She spoke of the happiness which awaited them, and of her plans to make him the greatest lord in the kingdom. He counselled her always to bow before fate, but one day he added: "In marrying, the temperament of those throwing their fates together should be known. I will disclose mine." He said that he possessed a nature bizarre and unsociable, being able to live only in the wake of the King; "thus I