on than her
love for her children.

A letter of Alberoni's to the lame bastard has been intercepted, in which
is the following passage: "As soon as you declare war in France spring
all your mines at once."

What enrages me is that Madame d'Orleans and the Princess would still
make one believe that the Duc and Duchesse du Maine are totally innocent,
although proofs of their guilt are daily appearing. The Duchess came to
me to beg I would procure an order for her daughter's people, that is,
her dames d'honneur, her femmes de chambre, and her hair-dresser, to be
sent to her. I could not help laughing, and I said, "Mademoiselle de
Launay is an intriguer and one of the persons by whom the whole affair
was conducted."

But she replied, "The Princess is at the Bastille."--"I know it," I said;
"and well she has deserved it." This almost offended the Princess.

The Duchesse du Maine said openly that she should never be happy until
she had made an end of my son. When her mother reproached her with it,
she did not deny it, but only replied, "One says things in a passion
which one does not mean to do."

Although the plot has been discovered, the conspirators have not yet been
all taken. My son says, jokingly, "I have hold of the monster's head and
tail, but I have not yet got his body."

I can guess how it happened that the mercantile letters stated my son to
have been arrested; it is because the conspirators intended to have done
so, and two days later it would have taken place. It must have been
persons of this party, therefore, who wrote to England.

When Schlieben was seized, he said, "If Monsieur the Regent does not take
pity upon me, I am ruined."

He was for a long time at the Spanish Court, where he was protected by
the Princesse des Ursins. He has some wit, can chatter well, and is an
excellent spy for such a lady. The persons who had arrested him took him
to Paris by the diligence, without saying a word. On reaching Paris the
diligence was ordered to the Bastille; the poor travellers not knowing
why, were in a great fright, and expected all to be locked up, but were
not a little pleased at being set free. Sandrazky is not very clever; he
is a Silesian. He married an Englishwoman, whose fortune he soon
dissipated, for he is a great gambler.

The Duchesse du Maine has fallen sick with rage, and that old Maintenon
is said to be afflicted by the affair more than any other person. It was
by her fault tha