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Updated: June 29, 2025
"Very well; die, poor tender little darling," replied Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente; "for if there are no men here, there are at least two women, your own friends, who declare you to be attained and convicted of being a coquette from instinct; in other words, the most dangerous kind of coquette the world possesses." "Oh! mesdemoiselles," replied La Valliere, blushing, and almost ready to weep.
Saint-Aignan followed him, leaving the rooms in as much despair as he had entered them with delight. Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente, less sensitive than La Valliere, was not much frightened, and did not faint. However, it may be that the last look of Saint-Aignan had hardly been so majestic as the king's. The king returned to his apartments with hurried steps.
Francoises Athenais de Tonnay-Charente had come to Court in 1660 as a maid of honour to the Queen. Of a wit and grace to match her superb beauty, she was also of a perfervid piety, a daily communicant, a model of virtue to all maids of honour. This until the Devil tempted her. When that happened, she did not merely eat an apple; she devoured an entire orchard.
"You heard, sire!" murmured Athenais. But the king did not reply; he remained with his eyes fixed upon La Valliere's half-closed eyes, and held her quiescent hand in his own. "Of course," replied Saint-Aignan, who, on his side, hoping that Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente, too, would faint, advancing towards her, holding his arms extended, "of course; we did not even lose a single word."
"They seem to be amusing themselves there," said the king. "Greatly, sire; I have always found that people are amused wherever youth and beauty are to be found." "What do you think of Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente, Henrietta?" inquired the king.
"I have never shown or taken any interest in Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente." "Bah!" "Never." "Did you not obtain admission for Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente into Madame's household?" "Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente and you ought to know it better than any one else, my dear comte is of a sufficiently good family to make her presence here desirable, and her admittance very easy."
It followed, as a matter of course, that he latter recommendation was quite as unnecessary as the former. Half an hour afterwards, everybody in Fontainebleau knew that Mademoiselle de la Valliere had had a conversation under the royal oak with Montalais and Tonnay-Charente, and that in this conversation she had confessed her affection for the king.
And Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente pronounced these words in such a tone as to leave no doubt, in her companion's minds, upon the official character with which she was invested. "Madame's desire!" exclaimed Montalais and La Valliere together. "Her ultimatum," replied Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente, diplomatically. "But," murmured La Valliere, "does Madame know, then "
The king, we have already observed, remained near La Valliere, and, throwing himself off his horse at the moment the door of her carriage was opened, he offered her his hand to alight. Montalais and Tonnay-Charente immediately drew back and kept at a distance; the former from calculated, the latter from natural motives.
Then, when she was alone, and at the very moment the poor lover, who had issued orders for the departure, was reveling in the idea that Mademoiselle de la Valliere would form one of the party, luxuriating in the sad happiness persecuted lovers enjoy of realizing through the sense of sight alone all the transports of possession, Madame, who was surrounded by her maids of honor, was saying: "Two ladies will be enough for me this evening, Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente and Mademoiselle de Montalais."
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