"However certain I was, I wished, dear niece, to see you prove it in all the luster of good judgment and purity. Only, and neither do I now mean to convey a reproach, I do deplore that a young person of your birth should, as it sometimes happens with you, forget herself to the point of speaking irreverently of the priests, the bishops, the Princes of the Church, and above all of the great King, our master, of whom your brother has the honor of being one of the most faithful, the most devoted servants." "Aunt, let us not discuss the worthiness of Bossuet and his fellows, any more than the worthiness of him whom you style your master; he never will be mine. I have but one Master: He thrones in heaven." "Do doubt; but after God, come the priests, the ministers, the Pope, the bishops, and then comes the King, to whom we owe blind submission, boundless devotion, pious respect." "Pious respect! When at Versailles I saw that King promenading in public in one carriage with the Queen his wife and his two mistresses--the old and the new--Mademoiselle La Valiere and Madam Montespan! Is such audacity in bad morals to be respected? No! I shall not respect that infamous King who surrounds himself with high-born courtesans!" "In truth, my dear, you are losing your reason. The violence of your language! Where can you have drawn such principles from?" "Excuse my Breton frankness, but I could not respect a person who inspires me with aversion, disgust and contempt. What! That prince knows how his scandalous amours afflict the Queen. He is aware of the bitterness of the rivalry between La Valiere and Montespan! And yet, without pity for the laceration of the hearts of those three women, he forces them to gulp down the affront put upon them, to silently swallow their mutual jealousy and resentment, to smother their shame. He forces them to appear in public face to face; he drags them triumphantly after him as if anxious to glory openly in his double adultery! Ah, I repeat it, that ridiculous self-infatuation, that disregard of all sense of chastity, that brutal disdain for all human feelings, that insolent cynicism towards women--no, that never could inspire me with aught but aversion, contempt and disgust!" "Oh, my niece, in their fervent adoration of their much beloved sovereign, La Valiere, Montespan and the Queen do as people do who make to God a sacrifice of their pains--they offer their torn hearts to their idol, the handsomest, the greatest King in the whole world!"