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. She is so indolent
that she will not stir; she would like larks ready roasted to drop into
her mouth; she eats and walks slowly, but eats enormously. It is
impossible to be more idle than she is: she admits this herself; but she
does not attempt to correct it: she goes to bed early that she may lie
the longer. She never reads herself, but when she has the spleen she
makes her women read her to sleep. Her complexion is good, but less so
than her second daughter's. She walks a little on one side, which Madame
de Ratzenhausen calls walking by ear. She does not think that there is
her equal in the world for beauty, wit, and perfection of all kinds. I
always compare her to Narcissus, who died of self-admiration. She is so
vain as to think she has more sense than her husband, who has a great
de