gave a pair of beautiful pendants to Madame de Berri.

My son has this year (1719) increased his wife's income by 160,000
livres, the arrears of which have been paid to her from 1716, so that she
received at once the sum of 480,000 livres. I do not envy her this
money, but I cannot bear the idea that she is thus paid for her
infidelity. One must, however, be silent.

SECTION XII.--MARIE-ANNE CHRISTINE VICTOIRE OF BAVARIA, THE FIRST DAUPHINE.

She was ugly, but her extreme politeness made her very agreeable. She
loved the Dauphin more like a son than a husband. Although he loved her
very well, he wished to live with her in an unceremonious manner, and she
agreed to it to please him. I used often to laugh at her superstitious
devotion, and undeceived her upon many of her strange opinions. She
spoke Italian very well, but her German was that of the peasants of the
country. At first, when she and Bessola were talking together, I could
not understand a word.

She always manifested the greatest friendship and confidence in me to the
end of her days. She was not haughty, but as it had become the custom to
blame everything she did, she was somewhat disdainful. She had a
favourite called Bessola--a false creature, who had sold her to
Maintenon. But for the infatuated liking she had for this woman, the
Dauphine would have been much happier. Through her, however, she was
made one of the most wretched women in the world.

This Bessola could not bear that the Dauphine should speak to any person
but herself: she was mercenary and jealous, and feared that the
friendship of the Dauphine for any one else would discredit her with
Maintenon, and that her mistress's liberality to others would diminish
that which she hoped to experience herself. I told this person the truth
once, as she deserved to be told, in the presence of the Dauphine; from
which period she has neither done nor said anything troublesome to me.
I told the Dauphine in plain German that it was a shame that she should
submit to be governed by Bessola to such a degree that she could not
speak to whom she chose. I said this was not friendship, but a slavery,
which was the derision of the Court.

Instead of being vexed at this, she laughed, and said, "Has not everybody
some weakness? Bessola is mine."

This wench often put me in an ill-humour: at last I lost all patience,
and could no longer restrain myself. I would often have told her what I
thought, but that I s