The king came forward smiling very complacently at the thought that with so little embarrassment he was to get rid of a companion whose presence had become an annoyance to him—that he could discard her as easily as he could lay aside a pair of soiled gloves. He congratulated the marchioness upon the great good sense she had shown in thus readily sundering ties which, after existing for eighteen years, had become embarrassing. He spoke of their children as his property, and assured her that he should do all in his power to promote their welfare; that he had already, by act of Parliament, conferred upon them statute legitimacy, and had thus effaced the dishonor of their birth. He apologized for not having her name mentioned in Parliament as their mother, this being impracticable, since she was the wife of another man.
Singular interview.
With smiling complacency, as if he were communicating very gratifying intelligence, he informed this crushed and discarded mother that, since her children were now princes, they would, of course, reside at court, and that she, their dishonored mother, might occasionally be permitted to visit them—that he would issue an order to that effect. And, finally, he coolly advised her to write to her husband, whom she had abandoned eighteen years ago, soliciting a renewal of their relationship, with the assurance that it was her intention to return to the paths of virtue.
Almost gasping with indignation, the haughty marchioness succeeded in restraining herself until the king had finished his harangue. She then burst forth in a reply which astonished and even alarmed the king.
"I am amazed," said she, "at the indifference with which a monarch, who boasts of his magnanimity, can throw from him a woman who has sacrificed every thing to his pleasure. For two years your majesty, in devotion to others, has been estranged from me, and yet never have I publicly offered one word of expostulation. Why is it, then, that I am now, after silently submitting for two years to this estrangement, to be ignominiously banished from the court? Still, my position here has become so hateful, through the perfidy and treachery of those by whom I am compelled to associate, that I will willingly consent never again to approach the person of the king upon condition that the odious woman who has supplanted me[W] shall also be exiled."
The king defends Madame de Maintenon's character.
The proud monarch was enraged. Pale with anger, he replied, "The kings of Europe have never yet ventured to dictate laws in my palace, nor shall you, madame, subject me to yours. The lady whom I have too long suffered you to offend is as nobly born as yourself. If you were instrumental in opening the gates of the palace to her, you thus introduced there gentleness, talent, and virtue. This lady, whom you have upon every occasion slandered, has lost no opportunity to excuse and justify you. She will remain near the court which her fathers defended, and which her wise councils now strengthen. In seeking to remove you from the court, where your presence and pretensions have long since been misplaced, I wished to spare you the evidence of an event calculated to irritate your already exasperated nature. But stay you here, madame," he added, sarcastically, "stay you here, since you love great catastrophes and are amused by them. Day after to-morrow you will be more than ever a supernumerary in the palace."
This heartless announcement, that Madame de Maintenon was to take the place of Madame de Montespan in the affections of the king, and probably as his wedded wife, pierced, as with a dagger's point, the heart of the discarded favorite. She fell senseless to the floor. The king, without the slightest exhibition of sympathy, looked on impatiently, while her women, who were immediately summoned, endeavored to restore consciousness. As the unhappy marchioness revived, the first words which fell upon her ears were from the king, as he said,
"All this wearies me beyond endurance. She must leave the palace this very day."