Montespan succeeded Madame de La Valliere in favor about 1667 and she
held her supremacy for ten years. Then came the turn of her fortunes,
for Madame de Maintenon, fascinating in all that makes feminine charm
and with an extraordinary mind in addition, supplanted Montespan and
became the companion of the King until his dying day. Montespan, who
had eight children by the King, left the Court in bitterness and
humiliation and, like La Valliere, ended her life in a convent.
Madame de Maintenon was the most distinguished woman in the history of
Versailles. As a girl, in abject poverty, she married in 1652 the good
old poet Scarron. There was no love lost there. She merely took the
gentle-hearted man because he offered either to pay for her entrance
into a convent or to make her his wife, and she found the latter
alternative more acceptable. During the nine years she lived with
Scarron, she maintained a brilliant salon, in which gathered the great
intelluctual figures of the time. In 1669 Madame de Montespan gave
Madame de Maintenon the charge of one of her sons. In that manner
Montespan brought her governess in touch with her King, and, in so
doing, sealed her own fate.
Madame de Maintenon was a very wise woman. She did not entertain any
sincere affection for the King, and, during all the years of his
devotion to her, she never really loved him. She found a monarch much
sated with the luxurious pleasures of the Court, and beginning to tire
of his latest mistress, and she saw in the situation an opportunity
that appealed to her ambition.
Pages:
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97