"The king stays with me till he goes to supper, and about a quarter of an hour before the supper is served M. le Dauphin, M. le Duc and Mme. la Duchesse de Bourgogne come to me. At ten o'clock or a quarter past ten everybody goes away. There is my day. I am now alone, and I take the relief of which I am in need; but often the anxieties and fatigues I have gone through keep me from sleeping." I expressed to Madame how trying all that seemed to me, and said I should not be surprised if some one should speak of her as the most unhappy person in the world. "And yet," she added, "could they not also say, 'She is the happiest. She is with the king from morning till night?' But they do not remember, in saying that, that kings and princes are men like other men; they have their griefs and troubles which we must share with them. Moreover, there are a thousand things that our princes never think of which fall upon me. For example, Mme. la Princesse des Ursins is about to return to Spain; I must busy myself with her; I must repair as best I can by my attentions the coldness of the Duchesse de Bourgogne, the stiffness of the king, the indifference of others. I go to see her; I give her time with me; I listen to a thousand matters I do not care about; and all that merely that she may go away pleased with others, and say good of them, especially of the Duchesse de Bourgogne. I see they are all too negligent to do this for themselves; I must supply the want; and so with a thousand other things. I have always on my mind Spain nearly lost to us, peace receding farther than ever, miseries that I hear of on all sides, thousands of persons suffering before my very eyes and I not able to help them,--and then, besides these sorrows, the excesses that reign at Court, drunkenness, gluttony, excessive luxury, and, worst of all, the visible dangers to religion." I asked Madame if she were not sometimes impatient; she answered: "Ah! indeed yes, I am; I am often, as they say, up to my throat in it; but it must be borne; and besides, God has arranged it. When I reflect on my condition, and how burdened I am with cares and griefs, I think: 'How would it be with my soul if this were not so? If, with this magnificence, wealth, and luxury, I had nothing to pain me, would anything on this earth be so likely to ruin me? A grandeur like this, if combined with ease of life, would soon lead me to forget God. I am lodged like the king; my furniture is magnificent; I am in luxury; but God shows his mercy throughout all that by mingling with it pains and distresses which serve as a counterpoise and make me turn to Him.'" _To M. le Duc de Noailles._ SAINT-CYR, September 5, 1706.