her a part of the time, it was easy for me to try to satisfy my curiosity.  I seized a moment, when the reading was interrupted, to say, “You looked dreadfully shocked, Madame, when the King pronounced the name of D’Egmont.”  At these words, she again raised her eyes, and said, “You would feel as I do, if you knew the affair.”  “It must, then, be deeply affecting, for I do not think that it personally concerns you, Madame.”  “No,” said she, “it does not; as, however, I am not the only person acquainted with this history, and as I know you to be discreet, I will tell it you.  The last Comte d’Egmont married a reputed daughter of the Duc de Villars; but the Duchess had never lived with her husband, and the Comtesse d’Egmont is, in fact, a daughter of the Chevalier d’Orleans.  At the death of her husband, young, beautiful, agreeable, and heiress to an immense fortune, she attracted the suit and homage of all the most distinguished men at Court.  Her mother’s director, one day, came into her room and requested a private interview; he then revealed to her that she was the offspring of an adulterous intercourse, for which her mother had been doing penance for five-and-twenty years.  ‘She could not,’ said he, ’oppose your former marriage, although it caused her extreme distress.  Heaven did not grant you children; but, if you marry again, you run the risk, Madame, of transmitting to another family the immense wealth, which does not, in fact, belong to you, and which is the price of crime.’

“The Comtesse d’Egmont heard this recital with horror.  At the same instant, her mother entered, and, on her knees, besought her daughter to avert her eternal damnation.  Madame d’Egmont tried to calm her own and her mother’s mind.  ‘What can I do?’ said she, to her.  ‘Consecrate yourself wholly to God,’ replied the director, ‘and thus expiate your mother’s crime.’  The Countess, in her terror, promised whatever they asked, and proposed to enter the Carmelites.  I was informed of it, and spoke to the King about the barbarous tyranny the Duchesse de Villars and the director were about to exercise over this unhappy young woman; but we knew not how to prevent it.  The King, with the utmost kindness, prevailed on the Queen to offer her the situation of Lady of the Palace, and desired the Duchess’s friends to persuade her to endeavour to deter her daughter from becoming a Carmelite.  It was all in vain; the wretched victim was sacrificed.”

Madame took it into her head to consult a fortune-teller, called Madame Bontemps, who had told M. de Bernis’s fortune, as I have already related, and had surprised him by her predictions.  M. de Choiseul, to whom she mentioned the matter, said that the woman had also foretold fine things that were to happen to him.  “I know it,” said she, “and, in return, you promised her a carriage, but the poor woman goes on foot still.”  Madame told me this, and asked me how she could disguise herself, so as to see the woman without being known.  I