Duc du Maine is generally spoken of only for his weakness, but nobody had a more agreeable wit.  His wife was mad, but she had an extensive acquaintance with letters, good taste in poetry, and a brilliant and inexhaustible imagination.  Here are instances enough, I think,” said he; “and, as I am no flatterer, and hate to appear one, I will not speak of the living.”  His hearers were astonished at this enumeration, and all of them agreed in the truth of what he had said.  He added, “Don’t we daily hear of silly D’Argenson, because he has a good-natured air, and a bourgeois tone? and yet, I believe, there have not been many Ministers comparable to him in knowledge and in enlightened views.”  I took a pen, which lay on the Doctor’s table, and begged M. Duclos to repeat to me all the names he had mentioned, and the eulogium he had bestowed on each.  “If,” said he, “you show that to the Marquise, tell her how the conversation arose, and that I did not say it in order that it might come to her ears, and eventually, perhaps, to those of another person.  I am an historiographer, and I will render justice, but I shall, also, often inflict it.”  “I will answer for that,” said the Doctor, “and our master will be represented as he really is.  Louis XIV. liked verses, and patronised poets; that was very well, perhaps, in his time, because one must begin with something; but this age will be very superior to the last.  It must be acknowledged that Louis XV., in sending astronomers to Mexico and Peru, to measure the earth, has a higher claim to our respect than if he directed an opera.  He has thrown down the barriers which opposed the progress of philosophy, in spite of the clamour of the devotees:  the Encyclopaedia will do honour to his reign.”  Duclos, during this speech, shook his head.  I went away, and tried to write down all I had heard, while it was fresh.  I had the part which related to the Princes of the Bourbon race copied by a valet, who wrote a beautiful hand, and I gave it to Madame de Pompadour.  But she said to me, “What! is Duclos an acquaintance of yours?  Do you want to play the bel esprit, my dear good woman?  That will not sit well upon you.”  The truth is, that nothing can be further from my inclination.  I told her that I met him accidentally at the Doctor’s, where he generally spent an hour when he came to Versailles.  “The King knows him to be a worthy man,” said she.

Madame de Pompadour was ill, and the King came to see her several times a day.  I generally left the room when he entered, but, having stayed a few minutes, on one occasion, to give her a glass of chicory water, I heard the King mention Madame d’Egmont.  Madame raised her eyes to heaven, and said, “That name always recalls to me a most melancholy and barbarous affair; but it was not my fault.”  These words dwelt in my mind, and, particularly, the tone in which they were uttered.  As I stayed with Madame till three o’clock in the morning, reading to