After this exordium, he set himself to criticise the coiffure of the
Queen, on account of the coloured knots that he had remarked in it.
"But you mean, then, to satirise me personally," said the Princess to him, "since you see my hair dressed in the same fashion, and I am older than my cousin!
"What became of you on leaving the King?" she asked him. "I waited for you till two hours after midnight."
"I went," said he, "to visit M. de Louvois, who is not my friend, and who requires humouring; then to visit M. Colbert, who favours me."
"You ought to have seen Madame de Maintenon, I gave you that advice before leaving you," she said; "it is to her, above all, that you owe your liberty."
"But your Madame de Maintenon," he resumed, "is she, too, one of the powers? Ah, my God! what a new geography since I left these regions ten years ago!"
To avoid tete-a-tete, M. de Lauzun was always in a surly humour; he put his left arm into a sling; he never ceased talking of his rheumatism and his pains.
Mademoiselle learned, now from one person, now from another, that he was dining to-day with one fair lady, to-morrow with another, and the next day with a third. She finally understood that she was despised and tricked; she showed one last generosity (out of pride) towards her former friend,—solicited for him the title of Duke, and begged him, for the future, to arrange his life to please himself, and to let her alone.
The Marquis de Lauzun took her at her word, and never forgave her for the cession of the principalities of Dombes and Eu to M. le Duc du Maine; he wanted them for himself.