enlightened him, to
drive him away. The effect of the revelation was terrible. M. de
Feucheres, indignant, quitted his wife. There no longer remained about
the Prince any but the creatures of Madame de Feucheres. Every one did
her bidding at Chantilly, and the Prince most of all."

The favorite sought to palliate her false situation in the eyes of
society by doing good with the Prince's money. The Count of Puymaigre
relates that she many times took him to the Hospital of Chantilly,
endowed by the munificence of the great Conde, the revenues of which
she wished to increase. He adds: "I urged her to this good work as much
as I could; for good, by whatever hand done, endures."

One day the Duchess of Angouleme asked him if he went often to
Chantilly.

"I go there," replied the Prefect, "to pay my court to the Duke of
Bourbon, whom I have the honor of having in my department."

"That is very well," responded the Dauphiness, "but I hope that Madame
de Puymaigre does not go."

The grand passion of the Duke of Bourbon was hunting. The Prefect of
the Oise says:--

"It was particularly during the hunts of Saint-Hubert that Chantilly
was a charming abode. The start was made at seven o'clock in the
morning, and usually I was in the carriage of the Prince with the
everlasting Madame de Feucheres. The hunting-lodge was delightful and
in a most picturesque situation. There twenty or thirty persons met to
the sound of horns, in the midst of dogs, horses, and huntsmen. The
coursing train of the Prince was finer and more complete than that of
the King. A splendid breakfast was served at the place of rendezvous,
built and furnished in the Gothic style of the thirteenth century, and
there the chase began. Although I told the Prince that I was no hunter,
he often made me mount my horse and accompany him; but often having
enjoyed the really attractive spectacle of the stag, driven by a crowd
of dogs, which launched themselves after him across the waters of a
little lake, I hastened back to the Gothic pavilion where the ladies
and a few men remained."

The Prince said one day to the Prefect:--

"Decidedly, you do not love hunting."

"But I might love it, my lord, if I had such an outfit."

"That's because you don't know anything about it, my dear Puymaigre;
when I was in England, hunting all alone in the marshes with my dog
Belle, I enjoyed it much more than here."

The Prefect thus concludes his description of life at Chantil