Madame de Venelle was so used to her
trade of watching us, that she rose even in her sleep to see what
we were doing. One night, as my sister lay asleep with her mouth
open, Madame de Venelle, after her accustomed manner, coming,
asleep as she was, to grope in the dark, happened to thrust her
finger into her mouth so far that my sister, starting out of her
sleep, made her teeth almost meet in her finger. Judge you the
amazement they both were in to find themselves in this posture
when they were thoroughly awake. My sister was in a grievous
fret. The story was told the king the next day, and the court
had the divertisement of laughing at it."
Whilst the great minister's nieces were yet extremely young,
Louis XIV. fell passionately in love with the elder, Maria, and
his marriage with her was frustrated only by the united
endeavours of the queen mother and the cardinal. A proposal to
raise Hortensia to the nominal dignity of queen was soon after
made on behalf of Charles II., who sought her as his bride. But
he being at the time an exile, banished from his kingdom, and
with little hope of regaining his throne, the offer was rejected
by Cardinal Mazarine as unworthy of his favourite niece.
His eminence was, however, anxious to see her married, and
accordingly sought amongst the nobility of France a husband
suitable to her merits and equal to her condition, she being not
only a beautiful woman but, through his bounty, the richest
heiress in Christendom.
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