Louis, at last happy in the achievement of his desire, was not long in discovering that in the third of the Nesle sisters he had his hands more full than with either of her predecessors. Madame de Mailly and the Comtesse de Vintimille had been content to play the rôle of mistress, and to receive the King's none too lavish largesse with gratitude. Madame de la Tournelle was not so complaisant, so easily satisfied. She intended--and she lost no time in making the King aware of her intention--to have her position recognised by the world at large, to reign as Montespan had reigned, to have the Treasury placed at her disposal, and her children, if she had any, made legitimate. Her last stipulation was that she should be made a Duchess before the end of the year. And to all these proposals Louis gave a meek assent. To show further her independence, she soon began to drive her lover to distraction by her caprices and her temper: "She tantalised, at once rebuffed and excited the King by the most adroit comedies and those coquetries which are the strength of her sex, assuring him that she would be delighted if he would transfer his affection to other ladies." And while the favourite was thus revelling in the insolence of her conquest, her supplanted sister was eating out her heart in Paris. "Her despair was terrible; the trouble of her heart refused consolation, begged for solitude, found vent every moment in cries for Louis. Those who were around her trembled for her reason, for her life.... Again and again she made up her mind to start for the Court, to make a final appeal to the King, but each time, when the carriage was ready, she burst into tears and fell back upon her bed." As for Louis, chilled by the coldness of his mistress, distracted by her whims and rages, his heart often yearned for the woman he had so cruelly discarded; and separation did more than all her tears and caresses could have done, to awake again the love he fancied was dead. When Madame de la Tournelle paid her first visit as _Maîtresse en titre_ to Choisy, nothing would satisfy her but an escort of the noblest ladies in France, including a Princess of the Blood. Her progress was that of a Queen; and in return for this honour, wrung out of the King's weakness, she repaid him with weeks of coldness and ill-humour. She refused to play at _cavagnol_ with him; she barricaded herself in her room, refusing to open to all her lover's knocking; and vented her vapours on him with, or without, provocation, until, as she considered, she had reduced him to a becoming submission. Then she used her power and her coquetries to wheedle out of him one concession after another, including a promise by the King to return unopened any letters Madame de Mailly might send to him. Nor was she content until her sister was finally disposed of by the grant of a small pension and a modest lodging in the Luxembourg.