Ninon was greatly tempted to reply that if Françoise desired to speak to her, she might be at the trouble of coming to the rue des Tournelles. All circumstances taken into account, and the generosity with which she had treated Françoise’s little ways, it did not appear to her that she was bound to wait upon the woman, merely because she had lighted upon the lucky number in life’s lottery. Ninon, however, was but a daughter of Eve. Curiosity was strong to see how Madame Louis Quatorze lived in the lordly pleasure-house, and forthwith she obeyed the summons. Queen Maria Théresa’s surroundings and retinue had been modest enough even to parsimony. Madame Louis Quatorze was attended by a numerous guard, a train of pages, Swiss door-keepers, and the rest; while her Court and receptions were as magnificent as those of the king. Madame took herself very seriously, and her deportment had become most majestic. To Ninon, however, she unbent, and was simply the Françoise of old times. She led her into her own richly furnished private boudoir, adorned with a curious conglomerate of pictures and statuary, Christian and pagan, where an enormous, life-sized figure of Christ, in carved ivory, was neighboured by painted Jupiters and other Olympian deities, in curiously heterogeneous fashion. There Françoise embraced Ninon with quite a prodigality of affection. Suddenly, however, her manner changed; she congealed into gravity and tones of great solemnity, and Ninon saw the tapestry folds along the wall quiver slightly. It occurred to her that one only, His Majesty Louis XIV., could have any possible right to be present in that most private apartment, and even then she felt the need of putting a strong restraint upon herself and her foot, to prevent it from bestowing a kick upon the tapestry. Then the truth began to come out, the lamentable truth that Madame and the king were greatly perplexed as to the best mode of dealing with the Duc de Lauzan, whose possessions, made over to him by the Grande Mademoiselle, those, that is to say, which he still held, were much wanted for the king’s children. He had so many, as Madame de Maintenon pointed out. That, admitted Ninon, was true enough, “but I will engage, you will not be increasing the number,” she added. “What is the point of the question?” It was whether Mademoiselle had really married Monsieur de Lauzun.