he has great qualities: he will not allow himself
to be cheated. Do you know that he is acquainted with the disposal of
his finances to the last farthing?"

"Sire, he must be a miser."

"No, madame, he is a man of method. But enough of him. As to his majesty
of Denmark, altho' he would have been as welcome to stay at home, I
shall receive him with as much attention as possible. The kings of
Denmark and Sweden are my natural allies."

The king changed the subject, and said, "There is an abbe, named la
Chapelle, whom I think half cracked. He flatters himself that he can,
thro' the medium of some apparatus, remain on the water without sinking.
He begs my permission to exhibit his experiment before me; and if it
would amuse you, we will have the exhibition to-morrow." I accepted the
king's proposal with pleasure.

On the next day we went in a body to the terrace of the chateau. The
king was near me with his hat in his hand; the duc de Duras gave me his
arm. M. l' abbe waited us in a boat: he flung himself bodily into the
water, dressed in a sort of cork-jacket, moved in any direction in the
water, drank, ate, and fired off a gun. So far all went off well, but
the poor abbe, to close the affair, wrote a letter to the king. The
letter was carried in great pomp to his majesty. It contained two verses
of Racine, which had some double allusion to the experiment. This, you
may be sure, was interpreted in the worst manner. The duc d'Ayen gave
the finishing stroke to the whole, on his opinion being asked by the
king.

"Sire," said he, "such men ought to be thrown into the water; but all we
can wish for them is, that they should remain there."

The abbe was not more fortunate in the evening. He presented himself at
supper, but the king did not address a word to him, and he was compelled
to bear the malicious jokes of the courtiers. But let us leave Choisy
and the experimentalist, and return to Versailles and myself.

My friends were excessively desirous for my presentation, which would
decide my position at the chateau. As yet I only had an equivocal
existence, having rank neither at play, theatre, or public festival; so
that if the king should be capricious I could be dismissed as one of
the demoiselles of the _Parc-aux-Cerfs_. The duc d'Aiguillon, whose
attachment to me increased, calculated accurately all the advantages of
this presentation. It would place me on the same footing with madame de
Pompadour, and compel the m