Nothing indicates that her firm and decided will ever failed in carrying out this proud engagement, undertaken in early life with coolness and resolution. For a Saint-Simon and for a Ninon de Lenclos, who incriminate her conduct, there are many less suspicious witnesses who come forward in her favour. “We were all surprised,” says the Intendant Basville, “that any one could unite such virtues, such poverty, and such charms.” M. Lacroix[458] invokes that note transcribed by Conrart, said to have been found in Fouquet’s casket, and to have been written to him by Madame de Maintenon: “I do not know you enough to love you, and if I knew you perhaps I should love you less. I have always avoided vice, and I naturally hate sin. But I confess to you that I hate poverty still more. I have received your ten thousand crowns. If you will bring me another ten thousand in two days, then I will see what I have to do.” But besides the fact that Conrart ascribes to Madame de la Baulme this letter, the terms of which also contrast singularly with Madame de Maintenon’s style,[459] we know from positive proofs what were the relations both of Scarron and his wife with the family of Fouquet. If some doubts may exist with respect to Villarceaux, whom Saint-Simon and Ninon de Lenclos make Madame de Maintenon’s lover, no one can fail to recognize the perfect propriety and the dignity she exhibited in accepting the benefits of the Surintendant. It is always to Madame Fouquet that she addresses herself; and when the latter, charmed by so much intelligence, wishes to have the wife of Scarron near her, she rejects with marvellous tact a proposition full of perils both to her virtue, and, above all, to her good fame.[460] One day, however, she was obliged, on account of Scarron’s infirmities, to go herself to solicit Fouquet “But,” says Madame de Caylus (and Mademoiselle d’Aumale confirms the accuracy of this account), “she affected to go there in such great negligence that her friends were ashamed of taking her. Every one knows what M. Fouquet was then, his weakness for women, and how much the highest sought to please him. This conduct, and the just admiration that it excited, reached even the Queen’s ears.”[461] Extreme reserve towards the Surintendant, and affectionate gratitude towards Madame Fouquet, such were, we see, the sentiments of Scarron’s widow; and far from having to cause a weakness to be forgotten, Madame de Maintenon had, on the contrary, to remember the kindnesses of this family, and for her part to contribute to the alleviation of the prisoner’s lot.