fine affair.

My son has been dissuaded from issuing the manifesto.

Madame d'Orleans has at length quite regained her husband; and, following
her advice, he goes about by night in a coach. On Wednesday night he set
off for Anieres, where Parabere has a house. He supped there, and,
getting into his carriage again, after midnight, he put his foot into a
hole and sprained it.

I am very much afraid my son will be attacked by the small-pox. He eats
heavy suppers; he is short and fat, and just one of those persons whom
the disease generally attacks.

The Cardinal de Noailles has been pestering my son in favour of the Duc
de Richelieu; and as it cannot be positively proved that he addressed the
letter to Alberoni, they can do no more to him than banish him to
Conflans, after six months' imprisonment. Mademoiselle de Charolais
procured some one to ask my son secretly by what means she could see the
Duc de Richelieu, and speak with him, before he set off for Conflans.

[This must have been a joke of Mademoiselle de Charolais; for she
had already, together with Mademoiselle Valois, paid the Duke
several visits in the Bastille. When the Duke was sent to Conflans
to the Cardinal de Noailles, he used to escape almost every night,
and come to see his mistresses. It was this that determined the
Regent to send him to Saint-Germain en Laye; but, soon afterwards,
Mademoiselle de Valois obtained from her father a pardon for her
lover.---Memoirs de Richelieu, tome iii., p. 171]

My son replied, "that she had better speak to the Cardinal de Noailles;
for as he was to conduct the Duke to Conflans, and keep him in his own
house, he would know better than any other person how he might be spoken
with." When she learnt that the Duke had arrived at Saint-Germain, she
hastened thither immediately.

I never doubted for a moment that my son's marriage was in every respect
unfortunate; but my advice was not listened to. If the union had been a
good one, that old Maintenon would not have insisted on it.

Nothing less than millions are talked of on all sides: my sun has made me
also richer by adding 130,000 livres to my pension.

By what we hear daily of the insurrection in Bretagne, it seems that my
son's enemies are more inveterate against him than ever. I do not know
whether it is true, as has been said, that there was a conspiracy at
Rochelle, and that the governor intended to give up the