lities the more they quarrel. On the 4th of October, 1718,
Madame de Berri having invited her father to go and sleep at La Muette,
to see the vintage feast and dance which were to be held on the next day.
Madame d'Orleans wrote to Madame de Berri, and asked her if she thought
it consistent with the piety of the Carmelites that she should ask her
father to sleep in her house. Madame de Berri replied that it had never
been thought otherwise than pious that a parent should sleep in his
daughter's house. The mother did this only to annoy her husband and
daughter, and when she chooses she has a very cutting way. It may be
imagined how this letter was received by the father and daughter. I
arrived at La Muette just as it had come. My son dare not complain to
me, for as often as he does, I say to him, "George Dandin, you would have
it so:"--[Moliere]--he therefore only laughed and said nothing. I did
not wish to add to the bitterness which this had occasioned, for that
would have been to blow a fire already too hot; I confined myself,
therefore, to observing that when she wrote it she probably had the
spleen.

She is not very fond of her children, and, as I think, she carries her
indifference too far; for the children see she does not love them, and
this makes them fond of being with me. This angers the mother, and she
reproaches them for it, which only makes them like her less.

Although she loves her son, she does not in general care so much for her
children as for her brothers, and all who belong to the House of
Mortemart.

I was the unintentional cause of making a quarrel between her and the nun
of Chelles. At the commencement of the affair of the Duc du Maine, I
received a letter from my daughter addressed to Madame d'Orleans; and not
thinking that it was for the Abbess, who bears the same title with her
mother, I sent it to the latter. This letter happened, unluckily, to be
an answer to one of our Nun's, in which she had very plainly said what
she thought of the Duc and Duchesse du Maine, and ended by pitying her
father for being the Duke's brother-in-law, and for having contracted an
alliance so absurd and injurious. It may be guessed whether my
daughter's answer was palatable to my daughter-in-law. I am very sorry
that I made the mistake; but what right had she to read a letter which
was not meant for her?

The new Abbess of Chelles has had a great difference with her mother,
who says she will never for