and even candles
for the purpose of selling them again at a profit. It was the Duke de La
Force who bought the candles. One evening, very recently, as he was
going out of the Opera, the staircase was filled with young men, one of
whom cried out, as he passed, "His purse!"--"No," said another, "there
can be no money in it; he would not risk it; it must be candles that he
has bought to sell again." They then sang the air of the fourth act of
'Phaeton'.

[The Duke, together with certain other persons, made considerable
purchases of spice, porcelain, and other merchandizes, for the
purpose of realizing the hope of Law's Banks. As he was not held in
estimation either by the public or by the Parliament, the Duke was
accused of monopoly; and by a decree of the Parliament, in concert
with the Peers, he was enjoined "to use more circumspection for the
future, and to conduct himself irreproachably, in a manner as should
be consistent with his birth and his dignity as a Peer of France."]

The Queen Catherine (de Medicis) was a very wicked woman. Her uncle, the
Pope, had good reason for saying that he had made a bad present to
France. It is said that she poisoned her youngest son because he had
discovered her in a common brothel whither she had gone privately. Who
can wonder that such a woman should drink out of a cup covered with
designs from Aretino. The Pope had an object in sending her to France.
Her son was the Duc d'Alencon; and as they both remained incog. the world
did not know that they were mother and son, which occasioned frequent
mistakes.

The young Count Horn, who has just been executed here (1720), was
descended from a well-known Flemish family; he was distinguished at first
for the amiable qualities of his head and for his wit. At college he was
a model for good conduct, application, and purity of morals; but the
intimacy which he formed with some libertine young men during his stay at
the Academy of Paris entirely changed him. He contracted an insatiable
desire for play, and even his own father said to him, "You will die by
the hands of the executioner." Being destitute of money, the young Count
took up the trade of a pickpocket, which he carried on in the pit of the
theatres, and by which he made considerable gains in silver-hilted swords
and watches. At length, having lost a sum of five-and-twenty thousand
crowns at the fair of Saint-Germain, he was led to co