Chevalier de
Colbert, and the Comte de l'Aigle." Madame de Pompadour, however,
told me these two last affairs were not certain.
An adventure happened about the same time, which the Lieutenant
of Police reported to the King. The Duchesse d'Orleans had amused
herself one evening, about eight o'clock, with ogling a handsome
young Dutchman, whom she took a fancy to, from a window of the
Palais Royal. The young man, taking her for a woman of the town,
wanted to make short work, at which she was very much shocked.
She called a Swiss, and made herself known. The stranger was
arrested; but he defended himself by affirming that she had talked
very loosely to him. He was dismissed, and the Duc d'Orleans
gave his wife a severe reprimand.
The King (who hated her so much that he spoke of her without
the slightest restraint) one day said to Madame de Pompadour,
in my presence, "Her mother knew what she was, for, before her
marriage, she never suffered her to say more than yes and no.
Do you know her joke on the nomination of Moras? She sent to
congratulate him upon it: two minutes after, she called back
the messenger she had sent, and said, before everybody present,
'Before you speak to him, ask the Swiss if he still has the place.'"
Madame de Pompadour was not vindictive, and, in spite of the
malicious speeches of the Duchesse d'Orleans, she tried to excuse
her conduct. "Almost all women," she said, "have lovers; she
has not all that are imputed to her: but her free manners, and
her conversation, which is beyond all bounds, have brought her
into general disrepute."
My companion came into my room the other day, quite delighted.
She had been with M. de Chenevieres, first Clerk in the War-office,
and a constant correspondent of Voltaire, whom she looks upon
as a god. She was, by the bye, put into a great rage one day,
lately, by a print-seller in the street, who was crying, "Here
is Voltaire, the famous Prussian; here you see him, with a great
bear-skin cap, to keep him from the cold! Here is the famous
Prussian, for six sous!" "What a profanation!" said she. To return
to my story: M. de Chenevieres had shewn her some letters from
Voltaire, and M. Marmontel had read an _Epistle to his Library_.
M. Quesnay came in for a moment; she told him all this: and, as
he did not appear to take any great interest in it, she asked
him if he did not admire great poets. "Oh, yes; just as I admire
great bilboquet players," said he, in that
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