MADAME DE MAINTENON.—Alas! my dear Ninon! from the time I left off calling you anything but Mademoiselle de l’Enclos, I from that moment began to be less happy. It was decreed I must be a prude. This is telling all in one word. My heart is empty, my mind under restraint. I make the first figure in France, but it is really no more than a figure, a shadow! I live only a kind of borrowed life. Ah! did you but know what a burden it must be to a drooping soul to animate another soul or to amuse a mind no longer capable of amusement!
MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—I easily guess the uneasiness of your situation. I fear insulting you should I mention the reflection that Ninon is happier at Paris in her little house with the Abbé de Châteauneuf, and some friends, than you at Versailles in the company of the most respectable personage in all Europe, who lays all his power at your feet. I am afraid to show you the superiority of my situation; I know it is wrong to discover too sensible a relish of our felicity in the presence of the unhappy. Endeavor, madam, to bear the load of your grandeur with patience, try to forget that delightful obscurity in which we formerly lived together, in the same manner you have been obliged to forget your ancient friends. The sole remedy in your painful state is to avoid reflection as much as possible, crying out with the poet,
Félicité passée,
Qui ne peut revenir,
Tourment de ma pensée,
Que n’ai-je en te perdant, perdu le souvenir!
Tormenting thought of former happiness gone, never to return! Why, when I was bereft of the joy, did I not lose the remembrance of it also!
Drink of the river Lethe, and above all, comfort yourself with having before your eyes so many royal dames whose time lies as heavy on their hands as yours can do.
MADAME DE MAINTENON.—Ah, my dear! what felicity can one find in being alone? I would fain make a proposal to you but I am afraid to open myself.
MADEMOISELLE DE L’ENCLOS.—Indeed, madam, to be plain with you, you have reason to be a little mistrustful, but take courage.