The Duchesse Louise de la Vallière, after her return from Chaillot, lived much at the Hôtel Biron, a residence at Versailles presented to her by the King. Her two children, the Comte de Vermandois and Mademoiselle de Blois, were with her. The Hôtel Biron, a sumptuous abode, situated between "court and garden," lay in a hollow close to the yet unfinished Palace of Versailles, on the same side as the reservoir. Adjoining were the royal gardens, already planned and partially completed by Le Nôtre. These gardens, with the formal groves and symmetrical thickets which enclose them, sloped downwards from the grand terrace of the southern front, and overshadowed the hôtel, giving it a sequestered, not to say melancholy aspect. On the other side a wooded park stretched away in the direction of what was in time to become the site of the two Trianons. The new Palace of Versailles was as yet covered with scaffolding; innumerable workmen laboured night and day on the north and south wings. The _corps de logis_, of brick and stone, was alone completed, and though greatly enlarged and beautified, still retained those suites of small rooms—_les petits apartements_—portions of the original hunting-lodge, which was so often visited by Louis XIII. in his hunting expeditions. [Illustration: VERSAILLES FROM THE PIÈCE D'EAU DES SUISSES. From an engraving by Rigaud.] La Vallière lived a life of extreme retirement. She rarely appeared at Court, except upon occasions of state, and received only such visits as etiquette rendered necessary. Save the King, her confessor, and a few intimate friends, she avoided every one. The splendour of the retreat assigned her by the King pained and humiliated her. She was but too conscious that in permitting herself to be dowered and ennobled by him, she was exposing herself to the charge of ambition, arrogance, and avarice—she, who only loved the man, and who shrank abashed from the sovereign! The very letters-patent by which Louis created her Duchesse de la Vallière infinitely wounded her. It was intolerable to her to be publicly addressed as "his singularly and entirely beloved Louise Françoise de la Vallière, possessed of his Majesty's special and particular affection." Vainly had she endeavoured to combat his resolution thus to distinguish her; vainly had she entreated him to allow her to sink into oblivion, forgotten by all save himself. Louis had declared, and with truth, that after her flight to Chaillot and her return to Saint-Germain, all mystery was impossible. He could not bear, he told her, to see her continually suffering affronts and mortifications in his own Court, to which her sensitive nature specially exposed her, and from which even he could not screen her.