But what would have become of the Academy? But let us return to M. le duc d'Orléans, to his marriage with Madame de Montesson, and to Soulavie's anecdote, which we will reproduce in his own words. "The Court and capital were aware of the tortures endured by the duc d'Orléans and of Madame de Montesson's strictness. "The love-lorn prince scarcely ever encountered the king or the duc de Choiseul without renewing his request to be allowed to marry Madame de Montesson. "But the king had made it a matter of state policy not to allow either his natural children or those of the princes to be legitimatised, and this rule was adhered to throughout his reign. "For the same reasons he refused the nobility of the realm permission to contract marriages with princes of the blood. "The interminable contentions between the lawful princes and those legitimatised by Louis XIV., the dangerous intrigues of M. de Maine and of Madame de Maintenon, were the latest examples cited to serve as a motive for the refusals with which the king and his ministers confronted M. le duc d'Orléans. The royal blood of the house of Bourbon was still considered divine, and to contaminate it was held a political crime. "In the South the house of Bourbon was allied on the side of Henry IV., the Béarnais prince, to several inferior noble families. The house of Bourbon did not recognise such alliances, and if any gentleman not well versed in these matters attempted to support them it was quite a sufficient ground for excluding him from Court favour. "Moreover, the minister was so certain of maintaining supremacy over the Orléans family, that Louis XV. steadfastly refused to make Madame de Montesson the first princess of the blood by a solemn marriage, forcing the duc d'Orléans to be contented with a secret marriage. This marriage, although a lawful, conjugal union, was not allowed any of the distinctions belonging to marriages of princes of the blood, and was not to be made public. "Madame de Montesson had no ambition to play the part of first princess of the blood against the king's wishes, nor yet to keep up hostilities over matters of etiquette with the princesses: it was not in her nature to do so. "Already accustomed to observe the rules of modesty with M. le duc d'Orléans, she seemed quite content to marry him in the same way that Madame de Maintenon had married Louis XIV. "The Archbishop of Paris was informed of the king's consent, and allowed the pair exemption from the threefold publication of their banns.