Avon Modern Short Story Monthly #36 — page 26: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

L SABATING a j Phare held ee ee king was very ike e belng God, and he Mapell : Pe fnctital We find him burdening-the most simple and personal acts a of everyday life with a succession of rites of an amazing complexity. Thus, when he rose in the morning, princes of the blood and the first gentlemen of France were’in attendance: one to present. to him 2 his stockings, another to proffer on bended knee the royal garters, ; 3 va third to Seiefrvesn the ceremony of handing him his wig, and so on —_ until the toilette of his plump, not unhandsome person was complete. ee: You miss the incense, you feel that some noble thurifer should have e abit him at each stage. Perhaps he never thought of it. ~~ The evil fruits of his reinieceuih that is to say, from the point of ao. rubbish—did not come until a hundred years later. In-his own day ~ - France was great, and this not because but in spite of him. After-all, ie he was not the absolute ruler he conceived himself. There .were such ae capable men as Colbert and-Louvois at the King’s side; there was ies: “the great genius of France which manifests itself when and as it ee : _will, whatever the régime—and there was Madame de Montespan to whose influence not.a little of Louis’s glory may be ascribed, since the most-splendid years of his reign were those between 1668 and 1678 when she was maitresse en-titre and more than Queen of Rie ~ France. The women played a great part at the Court of Louis XIV, Bot and those upon whom he turned his dark eyes were in the main as -_ wax under the solar rays of the Sun-King. But Madame de Mon- ~___ tespan had discovered the secret of reversing matters, so that in her _* hands it was the King who became as wax for her modelling. It is with this secret—a page of the secret history of France—that we are here concerned. ; - 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 com- - municant, 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. Pride and ambition brought ~ M ” =e - ao* - ie 64 ae x, sh pide ss) eee op ‘i _ the world by ceremonials of etiquette that were very nearly sacra- view of his order, which was swept away as so much anachronistic Francoise Athénais de Tonnay-Charente had come to Court in ~ about her downfall. She shared the- universal jealousy of which - . . 7 + . 7 > + AFe > “* * . é ‘ - . 4 — - ‘ ¢ e ‘ 4 -. . ” a A ye 3 Sey as -- GOMIEDOOKS aA . a - » - ase ~ . ‘ ~ PA. : oq * : — 7 a m / ° 5 ~ 2 — « q . > - . : '* . : - - ¥ - ¥ § isa > } r be . y ae - . : “ . - é ’ 7 - . >* . . “ Sys : “ e.” > 3 a yer et a S . eg ‘ ' - | aes + 22h) seo) ee 7 7GOM) >