an say that any imprudent
expressions have escaped her. This makes me believe that she has some
plan in her head, but I cannot guess what it is.

SECTION XI.--THE DUCHESSE D'ORLEANS, WIFE OF THE REGENT.

If, by shedding my own blood, I could have prevented my son's marriage,
I would willingly have done so; but since the thing was done, I have had
no other wish than to preserve harmony. Monsieur behaved to her with
great attention during the first month, but as soon as he suspected that
she looked with too favourable an eye upon the Chevalier du Roye,

[Bartholemi de La Rochefoucauld, at first Chevalier de Roye, but
afterwards better known by the title of Marquis de La Rochefoucauld.
He was Captain of the Duchesse de Berri's Body-Guards, and he died
in 1721.]

he hated her as the Devil. To prevent an explosion, I was obliged daily
to represent to him that he would dishonour himself, as well as his son,
by exposing her conduct, and would infallibly bring upon himself the
King's displeasure. As no person had been less favourable to this
marriage than I, he could not suspect but that I was moved, not from any
love for my daughter-in-law, but from the wish to avoid scandal and out
of affection to my son and the whole family. While all eclat was
avoided, the public were at least in doubt about the matter; by an
opposite proceeding their suspicions would have been confirmed.

Madame d'Orleans looks older than she is; for she paints beyond all
measure, so that she is often quite red. We frequently joke her on this
subject, and she even laughs at it herself. Her nose and cheeks are
somewhat pendant, and her head shakes like an old woman: this is in
consequence of the small-pox. She is often ill, and always has a
fictitious malady in reserve. She has a true and a false spleen;
whenever she complains, my son and I frequently rally her about it.
I believe that all the indispositions and weaknesses she has proceed from
her always lying in bed or on a sofa; she eats and drinks reclining,
through mere idleness; she has not worn stays since the King's death;
she never could bring herself to eat with the late King, her own father,
still less would she with me. It would then be necessary for her to sit
upon a stool, and she likes better to loll upon a sofa or sit in an
arm-chair at a small table with her favourite, the Duchess of Sforza. She
admits her son, and sometimes Mademoiselle d'Orleans. S