but, on returning
to Langres, did nothing but practise billiards in secret for six months.
When next in Paris, he was again asked to play, and his adversaries, who
thought him as unskilful as before, expected an easy victory but, to
their astonishment, he gained almost every game, won back much more than
he had lost, and then laughed in the faces of his companions.

I paid about this time, my first journey to Marly, and a singular scene
happened there. The King at dinner, setting aside his usual gravity,
laughed and joked very much with Madame la Duchesse, eating olives with
her in sport, and thereby causing her to drink more than usual--which he
also pretended to do. Upon rising from the table the King, seeing the
Princesse de Conti look extremely serious, said, dryly, that her gravity
did not accommodate itself to their drunkenness. The Princess, piqued,
allowed the King to pass without saying anything; and then, turning to
Madame de Chatillon, said, in the midst of the noise, whilst everybody
was washing his mouth, "that she would rather be grave than be a wine-
sack" (alluding to some bouts a little prolonged that her sister had
recently had).

The saying was heard by the Duchesse de Chartres, who replied, loud
enough to be heard, in her slow and trembling voice, that she preferred
to be a "winesack" rather than a "rag-sack" (sac d guenilles) by which
she alluded to the Clermont and La Choin adventure I have related before.

This remark was so cruel that it met with no reply; it spread through
Marly, and thence to Paris; and Madame la Duchesse, who had the art of
writing witty songs, made one upon this theme. The Princesse de Conti
was in despair, for she had not the same weapon at her disposal.
Monsieur tried to reconcile them gave them a dinner at Meudon--but they
returned from it as they went.

The end of the year was stormy at Marly. One evening, after the King had
gone to bed, and while Monseigneur was playing in the saloon, the
Duchesse de Chartres and Madame la Duchesse (who were bound together by
their mutual aversion to the Princesse de Conti) sat down to a supper in
the chamber of the first-named. Monseigneur, upon retiring late to his
own room, found them smoking with pipes, which they had sent for from the
Swiss Guards! Knowing what would happen if the smell were discovered, he
made them leave off, but the smoke had betrayed them. The King next day
severely scolded them, at which the Princesse