title he bore reflected his distinction
amongst a crowd of courtiers. I felt, therefore, that I ought to
consider myself as very fortunate that he deigned to visit me, and
accordingly received him with all the civility I could display; and the
welcome reception which he always experienced drew him frequently to my
abode.

The friendship with which he honored me was not agreeable to my enemies;
and they tried by every possible means to seduce him from me. They got
his near relations to talk to him about it; his intimate friends to
reason with him; the females whom he most admired to dissuade him from
it. There was not one of these latter who did not essay to injure me in
his estimation, by saying that he dishonored himself by an acquaintance
with me. There was amongst others a marquise de Beauvoir, the issue of
a petty nobility, whom he paid with sums of gold, altho' she was not
his mistress by title. Gained over by the Choiseuls, she made proposals
concerning me to the prince of so ridiculous a nature, that he said to
her impatiently: "I' faith, my dear, as in the eyes of the world every
woman who lives with a man who is not her husband is a ------, so I
think a man is wise to choose the loveliest he can find; and in this way
the king is at this moment much better off than any of his subjects."

Only imagine what a rage this put the marquise de Beauvoir in: she
stormed, wept, had a nervous attack. The comte de la Marche contemplated
her with a desperate tranquillity; but this scene continuing beyond the
limits of tolerable patience, he was so tired of it that he left her.
This was not what the marquise wished; and she hastened to write a
submissive letter to him, in which, to justify herself, she confessed
to the prince, that in acting against me she had only yielded to the
instigations of the cabal, and particularly alluded to mesdames de
Grammont and de Guemenee.

The comte de la Marche showed me this letter, which I retained in spite
of his resistance and all the efforts he made to obtain possession of
it again. My intention was to show it to the king; and I did not fail to
give it to him at the next visit he paid me: he read it, and shrugging
up his shoulders, as was his usual custom, he said to me,

"They are devils incarnate, and the worst of the kind. They try to
injure you in every way, but they shall not succeed. I receive also
anonymous letters against you, they are tossed into the post-box in
large packet