at she might be seen
from the cabinet, which was full of men; and calling the Chevalier of
Bavaria, he said to him: "Here, Sir Chevalier, come and see your
mistress, who will now have no occasion to go so far to find you."
Although the Duke and the Prince de Conti are brothers-in-law in two
ways, they cannot bear each other.
The Duke is at this moment (1718) very strongly attached to Madame de
Prie. She has already received a good beating on his account from her
husband, but this does not deter her. She is said to have a good deal of
sense; she entirely governs the Duke, who is solely occupied with making
her unfaithful to M. de Prie. She has consoled the Duke for his
dismissal from Madame de Nesle; but it is said that she is unfaithful to
him, and that she has two other lovers. One is the Prince of Carignan,
and the other Lior, the King's first maitre d'hotel, which latter is the
handsomest of the three.
It is impossible that the Duke can now inspire any woman with affection
for him. He is tall, thin as a lath; his legs are like those of a crane;
his body is bent and short, and he has no calves to his legs; his eyes
are so red that it is impossible to distinguish the bad eye from the good
one; his cheeks are hollow; his chin so long that one would not suppose
it belonged to the face; his lips uncommonly large: in short, I hardly
ever saw a man before so ugly. It is said that the inconstancy of his
mistress, Madame de Prie, afflicts him profoundly.
The Marchioness was extremely beautiful, and her whole person was
very captivating. Possessing as many mental as personal charms, she
concealed beneath an apparent simplicity the most dangerous
treachery. Without the least conception of virtue, which, according
to her ideas, was a word void of sense, she affected innocence in
vice, was violent under an appearance of meekness, and libertine by
constitution. She deceived her lover with perfect impunity, who
would believe what she said even against the evidence of his own
eyes. I could mention several instances of this, if they were not
too indecent. It is, however, sufficient to say that she had one
day to persuade him that he was the cause of a libertinism of which
he was really the victim.--Memoires de Duclos, tome ii. It is well
known that, after the Duke assumed the Regency, upon the death of
the Regent, the Marchioness du Prie governed in his name; and that
she was exile
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