rid of this lover, she would have
another to-morrow.

"Nay, she has others at this moment; for instance, the Chevalier de
Colbert, and the Comte de l'Aigle." Madame de Pompadour, however, told
me these two last affairs were not certain.

An adventure happened about the same time, which the Lieutenant of Police
reported to the King. The Duchesse d'Orleans had amused herself one
evening, about eight o'clock, with ogling a handsome young Dutchman, whom
she took a fancy to, from a window of the Palais Royal. The young man,
taking her for a woman of the town, wanted to make short work, at which
she was very much shocked. She called a Swiss, and made herself known.
The stranger was arrested; but he defended himself by affirming that she
had talked very loosely to him. He was dismissed, and the Duc d'Orleans
gave his wife a severe reprimand.

The King (who hated her so much that he spoke of her without the
slightest restraint) one day said to Madame de Pompadour, in my presence,
"Her mother knew what she was, for, before her marriage, she never
suffered her to say more than yes and no. Do you know her joke on the
nomination of Moras? She sent to congratulate him upon it: two minutes
after, she called back the messenger she had sent, and said, before
everybody present, 'Before you speak to him, ask the Swiss if he still
has the place.'" Madame de Pompadour was not vindictive, and, in spite
of the malicious speeches of the Duchesse d'Orleans, she tried to excuse
her conduct. "Almost all women," she said, "have lovers; she has not all
that are imputed to her: but her free manners, and her conversation,
which is beyond all bounds, have brought her into general disrepute."

My companion came into my room the other day, quite delighted. She had
been with M. de Chenevieres, first Clerk in the War-office, and a
constant correspondent of Voltaire, whom she looks upon as a god. She
was, by the bye, put into a great rage one day, lately, by a print-seller
in the street, who was crying, "Here is Voltaire, the famous Prussian;
here you see him, with a great bear-skin cap, to keep him from the cold!
Here is the famous Prussian, for six sous!"--"What a profanation!" said
she. To return to my story: M. de Chenevieres had shewn her some letters
from Voltaire, and M. Marmontel had read an 'Epistle to his Library'.

M. Quesnay came in for a moment; she told him all this: and, as he did
not appear to take any great interest in it, she asked h