the ground, that he nearly crushed it. The King,
who thus guessed at their intrigue, reprimanded him. Lauzun replied
insolently, and was sent for the first time to the Bastille.

Madame de Soubise was cunning, full of dissimulation, and very wicked.
She deceived the good Queen cruelly; but the latter rewarded her for this
in exposing her falsehood and in unmasking her to the world. As soon as
the King had undeceived Her Majesty with respect to this woman, her
history became notorious, and the Queen amused herself in relating her
triumph, as she called it, to everybody.

The King and Monsieur had been accustomed from their childhood to great
filthiness in the interior of their houses; so much so, that they did not
know it ought to be otherwise, and yet, in their persons, they, were
particularly neat.

Madame de la Motte, who had been at Chaillot, preferred the old Marquis
de Richelieu to the King. She declared to His Majesty that her heart was
no longer disposable, but that it was at length fixed.

I can never think, without anger, of the evil which has been spoken of
the late King, and how little His Majesty has been regretted by those to
whom he had done so much good.

I hardly dare repeat what the King said to me on his death-bed. All
those who were usually in his cabinet were present, with the exception of
the Princess, his daughter, the Princesse de Conti, and Madame de
Vendome, who, alone, did not see the King. The whole of the Royal Family
was assembled. He recommended his legitimated daughters to live together
in concord, and I was the innocent cause of his saying something
disagreeable to them. When the King said, "I recommend you all to be
united," I thought he alluded to me and my son's daughter; and I said,
"Yes, Monsieur, you shall be obeyed." He turned towards me, and said in
a stern voice, "Madame, you thought I spoke of you. No, no; you are a
sensible person, and I know you; it is to the Princesses, who are not so,
that I speak:"

Louis XIV. proved at his death that he was really a great man, for it
would be impossible to die with more courage than he displayed. For
eight days he had incessantly the approach of death before his eyes
without betraying fear or apprehension; he arranged everything as if he
had only been going to make a journey.

Eight or ten days before his death a disease had appeared in his leg; a
gangrene ensued, and it was this which caused his death. But for three
months preced