IN the balls given at Marly, she appeared loftily self-possessed, easy and familiar by turns, ogling people one after another with her eye-glass; and at one of these balls she made her appearance with a tiny spaniel under her arm, as though she had been in her own house, and (which was more remarked than anything else) the King caressed the little dog on several different occasions, when he went up to converse with her, and he did so nearly throughout the evening. "She had never before been seen to take so grand a flight."
Madame des Ursins, who, though a woman of imagination, was, as we have said, but little liable to be dazzled, might still have been pardoned giving way during these months of royal favour to an excess of intoxication; but above all, and at the same time that she displayed the treasures of her continual and inexhaustible conversation, she evinced a lively appreciation of the King's mental qualities. She returns to the subject afterwards too frequently, and enters too minutely into detail of what she discovered in him, not to show on her part a truthfulness stronger than flattery. She never speaks of the King otherwise than as _l'homme du monde le plus aimable_, as the _meilleur ami_, and _le plus honnête homme du monde_.
"If I had further, Madam, as you observe to me (she writes to Madam de Maintenon) the happiness of his being more accustomed to me, I ingenuously confess to you that it only depends upon his Majesty to perceive that I find him _very good company_. Really, although I can boast of having, in my time, entertained in France, Italy, and Spain, all the wittiest and most agreeable persons therein, I have never been so much pleased with them as with his Majesty. You must own that this is a very frank avowal."
There were not wanting those who even went so far as to suppose that the views of Madame des Ursins went much further--"the age and health of Madame de Maintenon tempting her." The question must have occurred to the Princess, it was hinted, whether the prospect of replacing her in France was not more alluring than any she was likely to meet with in Spain. Such conjectures, however, touching the inmost secrets of a woman's heart, are more easily formed than verified.