uchin nuns.

When the Duc de Richelieu was shown his letter to Alberoni, he confessed
all that concerned himself, but would not disclose his accomplices.

Nothing but billets-doux were found in his writing-case. Alberoni in
this affair trusted a man who had formerly been in his service, but who
is now a spy of my son's. He brought Alberoni's letter to the Regent;
who opened it, read it, had a copy made, resealed it, and sent it on to
its destination. The young Duc de Richelieu answered it, but my son can
make no use of this reply because the words in which it is written have a
concealed sense.

The Princess has strongly urged my son to permit the Duchesse du Maine to
quit Dijon, under the pretext that the air was unwholesome for her. My
son consented upon condition that she should be conducted in her own
carriage, but under the escort of the King's Guard, from Dijon to
Chalons-sur-Saone.

Here she thought she should enjoy comparative liberty, and that the town
would be her prison: she was much astonished to find that she was as
closely confined at Chalons as at Dijon. When she asked the reason for
this rigour she was told that all was discovered, and that the prisoners
had disclosed the particulars of the conspiracy. She was immediately
struck with this; but recovering her self-possession, she said, "The Duc
de Orleans thinks that I hate him; but if he would take my advice, I
would counsel him better than any other person." My son's wife remains
very tranquil.

On the 17th of April a rascal was brought in who was near surprising my
son in the Bois de Boulogne a year ago. He is a dismissed colonel; his
name is La Jonquiere. He had written to my son demanding enormous
pensions and rewards; but meeting with a refusal, he went into Spain,
where he promised Alberoni to carry off my son, and deliver him into his
hands, dead or alive. He brought one hundred men with him, whom he put
in ambuscade near Paris. He missed my son only by a quarter of an hour
in the Bois de Boulogne, which the latter had passed through in his way
to La Muette, where he went to dine with his daughter. La Jonquiere
having thus failed, retired in great vexation to the Low Countries, where
he boasted that, although he had missed this once, he would take his
measures so much better in future that people should soon hear of a great
blow being struck. This was luckily repeated to my son, who had him
arrested at Liege. He sent a clever fel