第7章 CHAPTER IV.

Mademoiselle de la Valliere Jealous.--The King Wishes All to Enjoy Themselves.--The Futility of Fighting against Fate.--What is Dead is Dead.

MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE was tall, shapely, and extremely pretty, with as sweet and even a temper as one could possibly imagine, which eminently fitted her for dreamy, contemplative love-making, such as one reads of in idyls and romances. She would willingly have spent her life in. contemplating the King,--in loving and adoring him without ever opening her mouth; and to her, the sweet silence of a tete-a-tete seemed preferable to any conversation enlivened by wit.

The King's character was totally different. His imagination was vivid, and mere love-making, however pleasant, bored him at last if the charm of ready speech and ready wit were wanting.

I do not profess to be a prodigy, but those who know me do me the justice to admit that where I am it is very difficult for boredom to find ever so small a footing.

Mademoiselle de la Valliere, after having begged me, and begged me often, to come and help her to entertain the King, grew suddenly suspicious and uneasy. She is candour itself, and one day, bursting into tears, she said to me, in that voice peculiar to her alone, "For Heaven's sake, my good friend, do not steal away the King's heart from me!"When mademoiselle said this to me, I vow and declare in all honesty that her fears were unfounded, and that (for my part at least) I had only just a natural desire to gain the good-will of a great prince.

My friendship for La Valliere was so sincere, so thorough, that I often used to superintend little details of her toilet and give her various little hints as to attentive conduct of the sort which cements and revives attachments. I even furnished her with news and gossip, composing for her a little repertoire, of which, when needful, she made use.

But her star had set, and she had to show the world the touching spectacle of love as true, as tender, and as disinterested as any that has ever been in this world, followed by a repentance and an expiation far superior to the sin, if sin it was.

Moreover, Mademoiselle de la Valliere never broke with me. She shed tears in abundance, and wounded my heart a thousand times by the sight of her grief and her distress. For her sake I was often fain to bid farewell to her fickle lover, proud monarch though he was. But by breaking with him I should not have reestablished La Valliere. The prince's violent passion had changed to mere friendship, blended with esteem. To try and resuscitate attachments of this sort is as if one should try to open the grave and give life to the dead. God alone can work miracles such as these.