After she had been reading for some time, the door was quietly opened, and the King himself entered with a soft and almost noiseless step. The lady immediately laid down her book and rose, but the King took her by the hand, led her back to her chair, and seated himself beside her.
"Still busy, reading," he said.
"I am anxious to do so, your Majesty," she answered, "at every moment that I can possibly command. In the sort of life which I am destined to lead, and in your Majesty's splendid court, temptations to forget what is right, and to think of nothing but pleasures and enjoyments, are so manifold, that one has need to have recourse to such calmer counsellors as these," and she laid her hand upon the book, "counsellors who are not disturbed by such seductions, and whose words have with them a portion of the tranquillity of the dead."
The words were of a soberer character than Louis had been accustomed to hear from the lips of woman during the greater part of his life, but still they did not displease him, and he replied only by saying,--
"But we must have a few more living counsels at present, Madame, for the fate of Louis----"
"Which is the fate of France," she said in so low a voice that it could scarcely be termed an interruption.
"For the fate of Louis and of his domestic happiness--a word, alas, which is so little known to kings--is even now in the balance. Madame," he continued, taking that fair hand in his, "Madame, it is scarcely necessary at this hour to tell you that I love you; it is scarcely necessary to speak what are the wishes and the hopes of the King; scarcely necessary to say what would be his conduct were not motives, strong and almost overpowering, opposed to all that he most desires."
Madame de Maintenon, for she it was, had risen from her seat; had withdrawn her hand from that of the King, and for a moment pressed both her hands tightly upon her heart, while her countenance, which had become as pale as death, spoke that the emotion which she felt was real.
"Cease, Sire; oh, cease," she exclaimed, "if you would not have me drop at your feet! Indeed," she continued more vehemently, "that is my proper place," and she cast herself at once upon her knees before the King, taking the hand from which she had just disengaged her own, to bend her lips over it with a look of reverence and affection.
"Hear me, Sire, hear me," she said, as the King endeavoured to raise her, "hear me even as I am; for notwithstanding the deep and sincere love and veneration which are in my heart, I must yet offend in one person the monarch whom every voice in Europe proclaims the greatest in the earth; the man whom my own heart tells me is the most worthy to be loved. There is one, however, Sire, who must be loved and venerated first, and beyond all--I mean the Almighty; and from his law, and from his commands, nothing on earth shall ever induce me to swerve. Now, for more than a year, such has been my constant reply to your Majesty on these occasions. I have besought you, I have entreated you never to speak on such subjects again, unless that were possible which I know to be impossible."