e same subject, to allow the valets who had
opened the doors for us time to retire. Then, to his great astonishment,
I went outside to see if there were no listeners, and carefully closed
the doors. After this I said to Fontanieu that I had not come concerning
the affair of Madame de Lauzun, but upon another very different, which
demanded all his industry, a secrecy proof against every trial, and which
M. le Duc d'Orleans had charged me to communicate to him; but that before
explaining myself he must know whether his Royal Highness could certainly
count upon him.

It is strange what an impression the wildest absurdities leave if they
are spread abroad with art. The first thing Fontanieu did was to tremble
violently all over and become whiter than his shirt. With difficulty he
stammered out a few words to the effect that he would do for M. le Duc
d'Orleans as much as his duty would permit him to do. I smiled, looking
fixedly at him, and this smile warned him apparently that he owed me an
excuse for not being quite at ease upon any affair that passed through my
hands; he directly made me one, at all events, and with the confusion of
a man who sees that his first view has dazzled the second, and who, full
of this first view, does not show anything, yet lets all be seen.

I reassured him as well as I could, and said that I had answered for him
to M. le Duc d'Orleans, and afterwards that a Bed of justice was wanted,
for the construction of which we had need of him.

Scarcely had I explained this, than the poor fellow began to take breath,
as though escaping from stifling oppression, or a painful operation for
the stone, and asked me if that was what I wanted?

He promised everything, so glad was he to be let off thus cheaply, and in
truth he kept to his word, both as to the secret and the work. He had
never seen a Bed of justice, and had not the slightest notion what it was
like. I sat down on his bureau, and drew out the design of one. I
dictated to him the explanations in the margin, because I did not wish
them to be in my handwriting. I talked more than an hour with him; I
disarranged his furniture, the better to show to him the order of the
assembly, and explained to him what was to be done, so that all might be
carried to the Tuileries and erected in a very, few moments. When I
found I had made everything sufficiently clear, and he had understood me,
I returned to the Palais Royal as though recollecting some