And Mademoiselle Athénais de Mortemar’s nuptials with Monsieur le Marquis de Montespan having been solemnised, the wife was left by the complaisant husband to become the second mistress of Louis XIV., and this ere the first was discarded, and Maria Théresa still a youthful wife. The two children of la Vallière the king legitimised by Act of Parliament; but soon Louise was seen no more at Court. She found refuge and rest for weariness and regrets of heart and spirit within convent walls. And now Anne of Austria succumbed to the fell disease which had insidiously attacked her, and she died, and was borne to St Dénis with great pomp, followed by Louis the king, clad in deepest mourning. CHAPTER XVII A Fashionable Water-cure Resort—M. de Roquelaure and his Friends—Louis le Grand—“A Favourite with the Ladies”—The Broken Sword—A _Billet-doux_—La Vallière and la Montespan—The Rebukes from the Pulpit—Putting to the Test—_Le Tartufe_—The Triumphs of Molière—The Story of Clotilde. By the advice of Guy Patin, Ninon’s constant friend and medical adviser, she went to drink the chalybeate waters of Forges les Eaux, in Picardy. Not that there was the least thing the matter with her; only, as the wise doctor said, “Prevention was better than cure.” Besides, well or ailing, everybody of any consequence went there; it was the thing to do, ever since Anne of Austria had taken a course of the waters, and a short time after had given birth to the child Louis, the heir to the throne of France, whose coming had been so long hoped for. Time had brought its sorrows to Ninon. It had treated many of the friends of earlier years with a hand less sparing than its touch on her. Among those passed away into the sleep of death, was Madame de Choisy. A great mutual affection had existed between the two women ever since they had first met, and the severance saddened Ninon. At Forges, she knew there would be many of her friends and acquaintance, old and new, and instead of going to spend the spring days at the Picpus cottage, she yielded to the persuasions of Madame de Montausier and of Madame de la Fayette, and went to drink the waters, mingle in its comparatively mild dissipations, and join in the gay school for scandal for which Forges was as noted as are the run of hydropathic resorts. It lies some half-way between Paris and the coast by Dieppe. One of the three springs it contains is named after the queen, presumably the one which brought Louis the Dieudonné, and the other two are called respectively _La Royale_ and _Le Cardinal_.