Madame de Maintenon herself dared to confess to no ache or pain that availed to rescue her from standing in the cold winds on frosty mornings—for the King loved the open air, and did not fear weather—beside him while he fed the fat carp in marble basins, decided upon a fresh alley to be cut through the woods, or upon a new cascade that was to pierce the hills, or a larger pavilion to be added to those already built. Nothing could be a greater proof of favour than to be included in the "list" to Marly. It was an honour more craved for than a ribbon or a place at Court. The names of the distinguished few were written down in the King's own hand (a very bad specimen of calligraphy), after due consultation with Madame de Maintenon. She was fond of Marly, hence its favour as a residence. She had herself superintended the building, seated in her gilt sedan chair, the King, hat in hand, standing by her side. At Marly she could better isolate him than at Versailles. His loneliness threw him more under her influence and under that of the Duc de Maine. These two, pupil and governess, perfectly understand each other. There is to be a codicil to the royal will, virtually passing over the Duc d'Orléans, his nephew, to invest Maine with all the powers of a Regent. Madame de Maintenon represents this hypocritical son of De Montespan as a simple-hearted, unostentatious man, wholly occupied by his attendance on his Majesty and with his classical studies. The King, whose personal activity is diminished, and whose powers of mind are impaired, believes it. Louis, once renowned as the finest horseman, sportsman, runner, dancer, shot, and charioteer, driving four horses with ease and grace, in France, is now stiff and somewhat infirm. Too indolent to move about and inquire for himself, he sees and hears only through Madame de Maintenon. To others he is an unbending autocrat. If Louis is feared as a parent he is hated as a Sovereign. The denunciations of his _ci-devant_ Protestant wife in the interests of his salvation lash him into inexpressible terror of perdition. She suggests that he can best expiate the excesses of his youth by a holocaust to the Almighty of all the heretics within his realm. The Jesuits press him solely. Terrified by the threats of awful judgments upon impenitent sovereigns, Louis signs the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He expels the Jansenists, destroys their pleasant refuge on a wooded hill near Maintenon, accepts the Bull _Unigenitus_, exiles the Cardinal de Noailles, and fills the state prisons with recusant bishops. The whole of France is in indescribable confusion. The south, where the reformed faith prevails, is deluged with blood. Many thousands of industrious and orderly citizens doom themselves to perpetual exile rather than abjure the Protestant faith.