Marie Leczinska’s prayer was heard. The next year she had a son (September 4, 1729). She gave the King ten children in ten years (1727–1737). And yet there was no real intimacy between the married pair. During the daytime they scarcely addressed a word to each other. One might have said they never came together but from a sense of duty, for the welfare of the State. Cold, polite, reserved, they mutually intimidated each other. Was the Queen as clever as she ought to have been in order to keep Louis XV. in the straight path? One may be permitted to doubt it. Her frank and simple nature knew neither astuteness nor diplomacy. The secrets of feminine coquetry were completely foreign to her. If D’Argenson is to be believed, she was not adroit. He says she was too prudish with her husband, thinking she had noticed that in France it was considered in good taste to be so. He accuses her of overdoing the matter, and then lamenting her mistake with bitter tears when it was past all remedy. He says, too, that she did not do all that was in her power to make her society agreeable to her husband. “At the beginning of his marriage,” he writes, “the King wanted to spend his evenings in the Queen’s apartments, playing cards and chatting. The Queen, instead of attracting him thither, putting him at his ease, and amusing him, played the disdainful. Hence the King grew disgusted, accustomed himself to pass the evenings in his own apartments, at first with men and afterwards with women, his cousin Charolais, the Countess of Toulouse. The King is naturally very timid and seeks for those with whom he can be at his ease. When he once meets them, it is plain to what degree he is a man of habitudes.” The Queen would have tried in vain to use the language of passion to her husband or treat him to jealous scenes. Louis XV. had a horror of everything that seemed to him exaggerated. In his wife’s chagrin he would have seen a freak, a forgetfulness of etiquette, a want of deference. Already, in 1726, Marshal de Villars had recommended calmness and resignation to Marie Leczinska. He says in his Memoirs: “The Queen led me into her cabinet, and spoke to me with keen sorrow of the changes she observed in the King’s affection. Her tears flowed abundantly. I replied: ‘I think, Madame, that the King’s heart is far removed from what is called love; you are not the same with regard to him; but, believe me, it is best not to display your passion too much; don’t let any one see that you fear a diminution in his sentiments, lest the many fine eyes that are ogling him continually should risk everything in order to profit by this change. For the rest, it is all the better for you that the King’s heart is not much inclined to tenderness, because where passion is concerned, natural coldness is less cruel than abandonment.’”