The men with whom she came in
contact from time to time during her long life, were nothing to her
from a pecuniary point of view, for she possessed an income
sufficiently large to satisfy her wants and to maintain the social
establishment she never neglected.
There was never, either directly or indirectly, any money
consideration asked or expected in payment of her favors, and the man
who would have dared offer her money as a consideration for anything,
would have met with scorn and contempt and been expelled from her
house and society without ever being permitted to regain either. The
natural wants of her heart and mind, and what she was pleased to call
the natural gratifications of physical wants, were her mentors, and to
them she listened, never dreaming of holding them at a pecuniary
value.
One of her dearest friends was Scarron, once the husband of Madame de
Maintenon, the pious leader of a debased court and the saintly
mistress of the king of France. In his younger days, Scarron
contributed largely to the pleasures of the Oiseaux des Tournelles,
the ecclesiastical collar he then wore not being sufficient to prevent
his enjoying worldly pleasures.
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