"She ravished the eye," we are told, "with her skin of dazzling whiteness, her elegant carriage, her free gestures, the enchanting glance of her big blue eyes--a gaze of which the cunning was veiled by sentiment--by the smile of a child, moist lips, a bosom surging, heaving, ever agitated by the flux and reflux of life, by a physiognomy at once passionate and mutinous." And to these seductions were added a sunny temperament, an infectious gaiety of spirit, and a playful wit which made her infinitely attractive to men much less susceptible that the amorous Louis. It is little wonder then that in the reaction which followed his stormy grief for his dead love, the Comtesse de Vintimille, he should turn from the lachrymose companionship of Madame de Mailly to bask in the sunshine of this third of the beautiful sisters, Madame de la Tournelle, and that the wish to possess her should fire his blood. But Madame de la Tournelle was not to prove such an easy conquest as her two sisters, who had come almost unasked to his arms. At the time when she came thus dramatically into his life she was living with Madame de Mazarin, a strong-minded woman who had no cause to love Louis, who had thwarted and opposed him more than once, and who was determined at any cost to keep her protégée and pet out of his clutches. And his desires had also two other stout opponents in Cardinal Fleury, his old mentor, and Maurepas, the most subtle and clever of his ministers, each of whom for different reasons was strongly averse to this new and dangerous liaison, which would make him the tool of Richelieu's favourite and Richelieu's party. Thus, for months, Louis found himself baffled in all his efforts to win the prize on which he had set his heart until, in September, 1742, one formidable obstacle was removed from his path by the death of Madame de Mazarin. To Madame de la Tournelle the loss of her protectress was little short of a calamity, for it left her not only homeless, but practically penniless; and, in her extremity, she naturally turned hopeful eyes to the King, of whose passion she was well aware. At least, she hoped, he might give her some position at his Court which would rescue her from poverty. When she begged Maurepas, Madame de Mazarin's kinsman and heir, to appeal to the King on her behalf, his answer was to order her and her sister, Madame de Flavacourt, to leave the Hotel Mazarin, thus making her plight still more desperate.