They had been appointed historiographers.
"When they had done some interesting piece," says Louis Racine in his Memoires, "they used to go and read it to the king at Madame de Montespan's.

Madame de Maintenon was generally present at the reading.
She, according to Boileau's account, liked my father better than him, and Madame de Montespan, on the contrary, liked Boileau better than my father, but they always paid their court jointly, without any jealousy between them.

When Madame de Montespan would let fall some rather tart expressions, my father and Boileau, though by no means sharp-sighted, observed that the king, without answering her, looked with a smile at Madame de Maintenon, who was seated opposite to him on a stool, and who finally disappeared all at once from these meetings.

They met her in the gallery, and asked her why she did not come any more to hear their readings.

She answered very coldly, 'I am no longer admitted to those mysteries.' As they found a great deal of cleverness in her, they were mortified and astonished at this.