Could one believe it? The favorite pushed her assurance to the point of posing as a victim. To credit her, people were unjustly opposing obstacles to her conversion and that of the King. Priests who refused absolution in this way were enemies of the throne and the altar. At the same time, she shamelessly solicited a place as lady of the Queen’s palace. Marie Leczinska’s obligingness had already been carried too far. This time the good Queen made some observations. To receive to a place of honor a woman separated from her husband, a person who could not even claim to receive the benefits of the general communion, was an ignominy to which Louis XV. could not really wish to condemn a Queen of France. Accomplished intriguer as she was, Madame de Pompadour was not yet discouraged. She declared her willingness to be reconciled with her husband, at the same time secretly acquainting M. Lenormand d’Étioles that he would do well to refrain from accepting such an offer. The letter she wrote him was replete with the finest sentiments. As much as she had scandalized society by her separation, so much she promised to edify it hereafter by an irreproachable union with her husband. But this promise was only a feint. Moreover, M. d’Étioles was hardly anxious to take back his wife. He might have applied to her the idea expressed in this line of a modern tragedy:-- _Et mon indifférence a tué mon mépris._ And my indifference has slain my scorn. It was long since the woman who had ceased to bear his name and whose desertion had once rendered him so unhappy, had excited in him either anger or resentment. He had wept for Madame d’Étioles. But Madame d’Étioles had been dead more than ten years, and he did not know Madame the Marquise de Pompadour. Nor had he any desire to know her. What he was told about her in nowise tempted him. He greatly preferred a former dancer at the opera, Mademoiselle Rem, with whom he lived maritally, and for whose sake he had refused the embassy from France to Constantinople. Madame de Pompadour triumphed. The really guilty person, said she, was her husband. He and he alone committed the sin, he who refused to open his arms to a repentant spouse. She could not re-enter the conjugal abode by force. Hence the Queen could have no complaint against her, and no opposition could be made against her obtaining, after having received absolution, that place as lady of the palace, which was the height of her desires. She formally received her Easter communion at the church of Saint Louis, Versailles. But it was not Père de Sacy who heard her confession, but another priest.