I. MAINTENON
[Original]
THERE is in L' Education Sentimentale a brief dialogue which recurs to my memory whenever I enter a historic home.
Frédéric and Rosanette were visiting the château of Fontainebleau. As they stood before the portrait of Diane de Poitiers as Diana of the Nether World, Frédéric "looked tenderly at Rosanette and asked her if she would not like to have been this woman."
"'What woman?'
"'Diane de Poitiers!'
"He repeated: 'Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of Henry II.'