For a moment his resolution seems to have been taken: he would put himself blindly and unreservedly in the hands of the king who had received from God, he writes, higher lights than those of other men; but the next instant the judge reappears in him and determines him, alone, unaided, subordinate official as he was, to enter into a struggle against the powerful ministers supported by the will and favour of the king. At this moment his character reveals itself in all its greatness. He went straight to Louis XIV and laid before him the charges against his mistress; then he wrote energetically to Louvois: 'In spite of all the care that has been taken, all these facts (against Madame de Montespan) have cropped up so often, in so many different quarters, and with so many details, that the king has been obliged to allow the interrogation of the prisoners about the favourite, but in private.' Louvois, one of the most intimate and well-liked friends of Madame de Montespan, did everything he could to save her. Madame de Maintenon, indeed, was hostile to her, and he feared her growing favour. Besides, as the Venetian ambassador observes, Louvois 'worshipped the French monarchy, to which everything seemed to him subordinate.' He felt bound to protect the prestige of the crown against the injury which the condemnation of the favourite would do it. Finally, in defending her, he thought he would ingratiate himself with Louis. Louvois endeavoured to bring La Reynie over to his views, to persuade him, at first gently, that it was important that the examining judge should find Madame de Montespan innocent. Louvois spoke, urged, demonstrated: La Reynie listened, but did not heed. The minister then changed his tone. He sought to prove to the magistrate that Madame de Montespan must really be innocent. He went to Paris on February 15, 1681, to explain the matter to him. Had not Mademoiselle Desoeillets, the favourite's maid, written that 'she was not guilty, and that what he (La Reynie) had been told about her dealings with La Voisin could not be true; that there were twenty women about Madame de Montespan, of whom eighteen hated her, and that they might be asked for information about her, but she thought that the Countess de Soissons had two maids, one of whom was almost her own height, and that the countess might well have taken her name (the name of Mademoiselle Desoeillets), to injure both her and Madame de Montespan, whom she hated.'