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 him if he did not admire great poets.  “Oh, yes; just as I admire great bilboquet players,” said he, in that tone of his, which rendered everything he said diverting.  “I have written some verses, however,” said he, “and I will repeat them to you; they are upon a certain M. Rodot, an Intendant of the Marine, who was very fond of abusing medicine and medical men.  I made these verses to revenge AEsculapius and Hippocrates.

  Antoine se medicina
    En decriant ta medicine,
  Et de ses propres mains mina
    Les fondemens de sa machine: 
  Tres rarement il opina
    Sans humeur bizarre ou chagrine,
  Et, l’esprit qui le domina
    Etait affiche sur sa mine.

“What do you say to them?” said the Doctor.  My companion thought them very pretty, and the Doctor gave me them in his handwriting, begging me, at the same time, not to give any copies.

Madame de Pompadour joked my companion about her bel-esprit, but sometimes she reposed confidence in her.  Knowing that she was often writing, she said to her, “You are writing a novel, which will appear some day or other; or, perhaps, the age of Louis XV.:  I beg you to treat me well.”  I have no reason to complain of her.  It signifies very little to me that she can talk more learnedly than I can about prose and verse.