It would have been hard to find a better creature than Marie-Therese, fresh and round, who leapt with joy the day following her marriage, and related ingenuously to Mme. de Motteville her little romance. Marie-Therese had always remembered that her mother,[122] who died when she was only six, had repeated that she desired to see her Queen of France; that this was the only possible happiness, or, if not attained, nothing remained but a convent. The little Princess had grown up with the thought of France. Louis XIV. had been the _Prince Charmant_ of her infant dreams. When she knew that a French lord came "post haste" to demand her hand for his master, it seemed to her entirely natural. She had spied from a window the arrival of M. de Gramont.[123] He had passed by very quickly, followed by many other Frenchmen, decorated with gold and silver, and covered with feathers and ribbons of all colours. One might have said, "a _parterre_ of flowers, bearing the royal demand," related the young Queen, becoming poetical for the first and last time in her life. Once married, Marie-Therese had demanded of her husband the promise that they should never be separated, either by day or night, if it possibly could be avoided. Louis XIV. promised and kept his word, but it was a useless precaution. According to Mme. de Motteville and Mme. de Maintenon,[124] the Queen did not know how to conduct herself toward her husband. She was stupid in her manner of showing her devotion; if the King wanted her, she would refuse to sacrifice a prayer in order to be with him. She had also an "ill-directed" jealousy; if the King did not desire her company, she did not sufficiently distinguish, in her complaints, against those who wiled him away, between Mlle. de La Valliere and the Council of Ministers. Her ill temper was discouraging. If the King led her with him, she complained of everything; if he did not, there were floods of tears. If the dinner was not to her taste she sulked; if it pleased her, tormented herself: "Everything will be eaten, nothing will be left for me." "And the King jeered at her," added Mademoiselle, having the honour, through her birth, of being often found amongst those who "eat everything." [Illustration: =HELENE LAMBERT, MADAME DE MOTTEVILLE= After the painting by De Largilliere] Marie-Therese was good, generous, virtue itself, she had a violent passion for her husband, and with all this she was a person to be avoided. Mme. de Maintenon summed up the situation in saying that "the Queen knew how to love but not how to please; the reverse of the King, who possessed qualities for pleasing all, without being capable of a strong affection. All women except his own wife were agreeable to him."