Excerpt from The Foreign Quarterly Review, Vol. 9: January and May, 1832

Being introduced to some of the houses of the highest nobility on the footing of a companion. Such persons in that capacity were more useful before the introduction of bells than they have been since. She appears to have won her way by the agreeableness of her conversation, and the charm of her manners: and becom ing the humble friend of Madame de Montespan, at that time the accnedited' mistress of the king, she was intrusted with the care and education of the royal bastards. The little Due de Maine was club-footed, and he and his governante were sent to all the baths in France and its neighbourhood, in the hopes of his wash ing his crooked foot straight. Previous to this time, the king had conceived a great aversion for Madame Scarron, and frs quentl attempted to induce Madame de Montespan to part with her. 2the perusal of her letters first produced a change in his feelings towards her. Afterwards she used to act as a mediator in the quarrels which frequently took place between the monarch and his haughty and capricious mistress, and was found so useful by both, that at last she became necessary. Madame de Mon tespan, the roudest beauty that ever graced or tormented ecourt, had at len the profound mortification of perceiving that she was indebted for the royal visits to the attendant governante, the poor and neglected widow of Scarron, the bufi'oon-poet, whom she had raised from utter insi nificance to consequence and competency. When the Queen die the King made proposals to Madame de Maintenon (for that had become her name); she ventured to reject them on the ground of religion. She was artful, and knew her man; finding that marriage was the ultimatum, the aid of Pére la Chaise was desired, and the widow of Scarron was married at midnight to Louis the Great, in one of the cabinets of the royal apartments at Versailles: his head valet, Bontems, served the mass as marriage in the religion of the Romish church is called), and arlay, bishop of Paris, was present as diocesan, as well as Louvois the minister; the two latter having exacted the royal pro mise that the marriage should never be declared. It might have been supposed that if any man could have made good terms with a woman, it was, the King: be, however, was compelled to give marriage as a consideration for that person which his inferiors by infinite degrees had taken almost for charity. These things de pend not so much on the real situation of parties, as upon the weakness of one mind and the dexterity of another. From that hour Madame de Maintenon was more than a queen in France; by the King she was treated with marks of outward respect and almost veneration, which, while they drew the courtiers on their knees, made them almost burst for vexation and disgust. The aristocratic distinctions, which seemed to their minds a part of nature, weseiooqstrongeven for the King to eradicate, though he.

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