



Produced by David Widger





MEMOIRS OF MADAME LA MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN

Written by Herself


Being the Historic Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Madame de Montespan----Etching by Mercier

Hortense Mancini----Drawing in the Louvre

Madame de la Valliere----Painting by Francois

Moliere----Original Etching by Lalauze

Boileau----Etching by Lalauze

A French Courtier----Photogravure from a Painting

Madame de Maintenon----Etching by Mercier from Painting by Hule

Charles II.----Original Etching by Ben Damman

Bosseut----Etching by Lalauze

Louis XIV. Knighting a Subject----Photogravure from a Rare Print

A French Actress----Painting by Leon Comerre

Racine----Etching by Lalauze





BOOK 1.




TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.


Historians have, on the whole, dealt somewhat harshly with the
fascinating Madame de Montespan, perhaps taking their impressions from
the judgments, often narrow and malicious, of her contemporaries. To help
us to get a fairer estimate, her own "Memoirs," written by herself, and
now first given to readers in an English dress, should surely serve.
Avowedly compiled in a vague, desultory way, with no particular regard to
chronological sequence, these random recollections should interest us, in
the first place, as a piece of unconscious self-portraiture.  The cynical
Court lady, whose beauty bewitched a great King, and whose ruthless
sarcasm made Duchesses quail, is here drawn for us in vivid fashion by