Elisabeth of France, Queen of Spain

The two other legitimated daughters of the king, Mademoiselle de Nantes, born in 1673, and Mademoiselle de Blois in 1677, who were to marry some years later, one the Duke of Bourbon and the other the Duke of Chartres, the future regent.

Madame de Montespan, their mother, then forty-one years old, already at the end of her left-handed reign, but still living at court in the double capacity of Lady of the Queen's Palace and the mother of legitimated children, but no longer bearing any sway over either the heart or the senses of Louis XIV, and finally Madame de Manteno, already very influential under her modest exterior, still beautiful in spite of her forty-seven years, on equally good terms with both king and queen, and rewarded since 1680 for the cares she had bestowed as governess on the children of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan by a place expressly created for her which did not bind her to any assiduous service while it gave her an honorable position at court, that of second lady-in-waiting to the Dauphiness.

The parts played by the women of Versailles cannot be understood without studying beforehand the character of the sovereign who was the animating spirit of this palace and who strongly impressed himself not merely on his own realm but on all Europe.

Never has any monarch exercised such a prestige over his court.

The worthy inheritor of Charlemagne asked pardon for his sins from the son of a peasant.

It is this mixture of Christian humility with royal pride which gives an aspect so imposing to the character of Louis XIV.

The religious sentiments taught him from his cradle by his mother constantly recurred to his mind, even in his most lamentable errors.

When he was a child, this impassioned mother, kneeling before him, cried with transport, I would respect him as much as I love him.