be imagined.

At the end of this year the King resolved to undertake three grand
projects, which ought to have been carried out long before: the chapel of
Versailles, the Church of the Invalides, and the altar of Notre-Dame de
Paris. This last was a vow of Louis XIII., made when, he no longer was
able to accomplish it, and which he had left to his successor, who had
been more than fifty years without thinking of it.

On the 6th of January, upon the reception of the ambassadors at the house
of the Duchesse de Bourogogne, an adventure happened which I will here
relate. M. de Lorraine belonged to a family which had been noted for its
pretensions, and for the disputes of precedency in which it engaged. He
was as prone to this absurdity as the rest, and on this occasion incited
the Princesse d'Harcourt, one of his relations, to act in a manner that
scandalised all the Court. Entering the room in which the ambassadors
were to be received and where a large number of ladies were already
collected, she glided behind the Duchesse de Rohan, and told her to pass
to the left. The Duchesse de Rohan, much surprised, replied that she was
very well placed already. Whereupon, the Princesse d'Harcourt, who was
tall and strong, made no further ado, but with her two arms seized the
Duchesse de Rohan, turned her round, and sat down in her place. All the
ladies were strangely scandalised at this, but none dared say a word, not
even Madame de Lude, lady in waiting on the Duchesse de Bourgogne, who,
for her part also, felt the insolence of the act, but dared not speak,
being so young. As for the Duchesse de Rohan, feeling that opposition
must lead to fisticuffs, she curtseyed to the Duchess, and quietly
retired to another place. A few minutes after this, Madame de Saint-
Simon, who was then with child, feeling herself unwell, and tired of
standing, seated herself upon the first cushion she could find. It so
happened, that in the position she thus occupied, she had taken
precedence of Madame d'Armagnac by two degrees. Madame d'Armagnac,,
perceiving it, spoke to her upon the subject. Madame de Saint-Simon, who
had only placed herself there for a moment, did not reply, but went
elsewhere.

As soon as I learnt of the first adventure, I thought it important that
such an insult should not be borne, and I went and conferred with M. de
la Rochefoucauld upon the subject, at the same time that Marechal de
Boufflers spoke of it to M. de Noailles. I cal