wanted to have her blooded. Just at this time the
Spanish Ambassador at Piedmont sent her a counter-poison which had a
happy effect: she recovered, but never would mention whom she
suspected. She got tired of the King, and persuaded her brother,
the Chevalier de Lugner, to come and carry her off, the King being
then upon a journey. The rendezvous was in a chapel about four
leagues distant from Turin. She had a little parrot with her. Her
brother arrived, they set out together, and, after having proceeded
four leagues on her journey, she remembered that she had forgotten
her parrot in the chapel. Without regarding the danger to which she
exposed her brother, she insisted upon returning to look for her
parrot, and did so. She died in Paris in the beginning of the reign
of Louis XV. She was fond of literary persons, and collected about
her some of the best company of that day, among whom her wit and
grace enabled her to cut a brilliant figure. She was the intimate
friend of the poet La Faye, whom she advised in his compositions,
and whose life she made delightful. Her fondness for the arts and
pleasure procured for her the appellation of 'Dame de Volupte', and
she wrote this epitaph upon herself:

"Ci git, dans un pais profonde,
Cette Dame de Volupte,
Qui, pour plus grande surete,
Fit son Paradis dans ce monde."]

SECTION XXXVI.--THE GRAND DUCHESS, WIFE OF COSMO II. OF FLORENCE.

The Grand Duchess has declared to me, that, from the day on which she set
out for Florence, she thought of nothing but her return, and the means of
executing this design as soon as she should be able.

No one could approve of her deserting her husband, and the more
particularly as she speaks very well of him, and describes the manner of
living at Florence as like a terrestrial paradise.

She does not think herself unfortunate for having travelled, and looks
upon all the grandeur she enjoyed at Florence as not to be compared with
the unrestrained way of living in which she indulges here. She is very
amusing when she relates her own history, in the course of which she by
no means flatters herself.

"Indeed, cousin," I say to her often, "you do not flatter yourself, but
you really tell things which make against you."

"Ah, no matter," she replies, "I care not,