Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/577

 553 LOVE chestnut tint. She had a well-shaped nose, a finely cut mouth, and the most beautiful eyes conceivable — black, brilliant, expres- sive, changing from archness to sweetness with every thought. She spoke simply and without affectation in a dulcet, fluted voice, that was one of her greatest charms." At her feet lay the wealth and talent of Paris ; men of means and men of position offered their hearts and fortunes to the beautiful widow, but she would have none of them. Although among her friends she numbered the gayest of Parisiennes, she remained true always to her highest tra- ditions. The friend of Ninon de-l'Enclos, the confidante of Madame de Montespan, never was she infected by the shallowness or self-seeking na- tures of her friends, and she aspired to some- thing higher than a union with one of the social butter- flies of the day. And it is for this reason, perhaps, that Madame de Maintenon has often been de- claimed a hypocrite. For the first nine years of her widowhood, Madame Scar- ron resided in an apartment which she had taken in the convent where she had been converted. Here she was able to live in comparative comfort, for her friends persuad- ed the queen to continue paying to his widow the pension which she had allowed to Scarron, and to in- crease that pension to 6,500 francs per annum. In 1669, however, after the birth of Madame de Montespan's third child, the Due du Maine, Madame Scarron became gouver- nante to the king's children. " I undertook this charge," she de- clared, " out of respect for the king, and because my confessor considered it a good work. At the commencement I believed that I should never get to the year's end without disgust. Little by little I silenced my emotions and regrets. A life of activity and occupation, by separating us, as it were, from ourselves, D 34 Le Grand Monarquc (Louis XIV, of France) After Jean de la Haye extinguishes the exacting niceties of our sensibility and self-conceit." Louis, however, although he regarded her as eminently suited to take charge of his and Madame de Montespan's children, dis- liked Madame Scarron intensely ; he regarded her as a prude and a bore, and as such, indeed, it would be extremely easy to regard her were it not for the fact that she estab- lished herself indisputably as the centre of the cultured society of Paris, the most splendid in the world. So great, indeed, was the king's dislike for Madame Scarron that if, when paying a visit to Madame de Montespan, he found the two women to- gether, he would withdraw immediately. One day , however, while crossing the vestibule he heard peals of laughter issuing from her room. He stopped and listened at the door, and was greatly amused by a story which Madame' Scar- ron was nar- rating. At the conclusion of the story he walked into the room and com- plimented her. " I thought you were of a serious, melan- choly disposi- tion," he said; "but, as I lis- tened to you through the open door, I am no longer sur- prised that you have such long talks with madame la marquise. Will you do me the favour of being as amusing some other time, if I venture to make one of the party ? " From this day Madame Scarron rose rapidly in favour with the king ; in 1674 he presented her with ten thousand pounds, with which to realise the desire of her heart and buy the estate of Maintenon, and, in the same year, he authorised her to sign herself merely " Maintenon." Madame's affection for her charge, the Due du Maine, no doubt, did much to endear her to the king, for Louis was inordinately fond of his son. The due, however, was slightly lame, and Madame de Maintenon took him to Begere to try the waters. The treatment I o