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like another man.” 6 People were more catty about the change in Athénaïs. No longer a fresh and virtuous young bride, she now appeared capricious, coquettish, imperious and difficult to please. This observation may have had more to do with the changed perspective of the observers rather than a real alteration in her personality, as it is hard to believe that her previous commendable behavior was entirely a manipulative affectation. People condemned her because she was not ashamed, just as they had condemned Louise because she was. If her delight in her lover and her magnificent ambitions were now obvious, they were certainly matched by Louis’s own. Their new relationship inaugurated the most dazzling and successful years of his kingship, the years which, even the harshest of French historians concede, deserve to be known as the “Age Montespan.”
    A critic of the Marquise has written that Louis could never have truly loved her since their relationship was governed entirely by desire. Even on such a biased reckoning, if this were the case, Athénaïs must have been a superlative lover for Louis to have adored her as long and as thoroughly as he did. Certainly they both had strongly sensual natures, enjoying gamey, spicy foods, perfumes ( jasmine was a mutual favorite), and the caress of delicate fabrics. Athénaïs has also been criticized for replacing the King’s tenderness with libertinism: “Her tears moved him, not because she was pained, but because he found her beautiful in tears.” 7 It is true that, unlike Louise, Athénaïs did go so far as to study the King’s pleasure in every aspect of his life, including his bed. She knew that mere acquiescence, even from a beautiful woman, will not enrapture a man for long, and she sought to please and excite the King to such an extent that his doctors grew concerned about his nocturnal exertions. She took the time to learn her lover’s body, to discover what excited him and how he would react. The hagiographers of Louise de La Vallière suggest that Athénaïs was not “truly” sensual because passion did not make her miserable, as love is great only if it is tragic. Athénaïs refused to suffer. She reveled in her sexual power, and for Louis the pleasure of making love to a thoroughly enthusiastic woman after the guilty tears, the persuasions, the repetitive “surrenders” of the clinging Louise must have been intoxicating. It is interesting to observe that Athénaïs is largely responsible for the racy reputation of the “French favorite,” so much so that these ladies’ “memoirs” are often a byword for pornography. Certainly many of the apocryphal accounts of Mme. de Montespan’s life are thinly disguised erotica.
    As autumn descended damply on the court, Louise gave birth to her fourth child, her son the Comte de Vermandois. Did Athénaïs pity her vanquished rival as she danced with the King, knowing that the screams of Louise’s labor were being stifled by the music of the ball? As was customary, the child was immediately smuggled away, and that same evening, Louis took his medianoche — his late supper — in the new mother’s room, where she received him in full dress, etiquette demanding that she appear not the least indisposed. The physical agony of a tightly laced, heavy court dress must have been extreme. Athénaïs knew that no less would be expected of her if she were to have a child by the King, and she learned her lesson well. During seven pregnancies by Louis, she never once complained to him of illness or fatigue, knowing that he disliked to be reminded of the consequences of his pleasures. For the present, her own appetite for pleasure was indefatigable, and the King obliged her, with balls at Versailles and the Tuileries, ballets and parties at Monsieur’s Palais Royal, plays, racing, masquerades. The court was “a society by nature already selfish, frivolous, infinitely uncharitable, where the fight for favors, that is for life,