prince.  The court of France has always been foolishly particular on the question of titles, and is even now sparing of the title of monsieur, although it is common enough everywhere every man who was not titled was called Sieur.  I have remarked that the king never addressed his bishops otherwise than as abbes, although they were generally very proud of their titles.  The king likewise affected to know a nobleman only when his name was inscribed amongst those who served him.

Yet the haughtiness of Louis XV. had been innoculated into him by education; it was not in his nature.  When an ambassador presented someone to him, the person thus presented withdrew with the certainty of having been seen by the king, but that was all.  Nevertheless, Louis XV. was very polite, particularly with ladies, even with his mistresses, when in public.  Whoever failed in respect towards them in the slightest manner was sure of disgrace, and no king ever possessed to a greater extent the grand royal virtue which is called dissimulation.  He kept a secret faithfully, and he was delighted when he knew that no one but himself possessed it.

The Chevalier d’Eon is a proof of this, for the king alone knew and had always known that the chevalier was a woman, and all the long discussions which the false chevalier had with the office for foreign affairs was a comedy which the king allowed to go on, only because it amused him.

Louis XV. was great in all things, and he would have had no faults if flattery had not forced them upon him.  But how could he possibly have supposed himself faulty in anything when everyone around him repeated constantly that he was the best of kings?  A king, in the opinion of which he was imbued respecting his own person, was a being of a nature by far too superior to ordinary men for him not to have the right to consider himself akin to a god.  Sad destiny of kings!  Vile flatterers are constantly doing everything necessary to reduce them below the condition of man.

The Princess of Ardore was delivered about that time of a young prince.  Her husband, the Neapolitan ambassador, entreated Louis XV. to be god-father to the child; the king consented and presented his god-son with a regiment; but the mother, who did not like the military career for her son, refused it.  The Marshal de Richelieu told me that he had never known the king laugh so heartily as when he heard of that singular refusal.

At the Duchess de Fulvie’s I made the acquaintance of Mdlle.  Gaussin, who was called Lolotte.  She was the mistress of Lord Albemarle, the English ambassador, a witty and very generous nobleman.  One evening he complained of his mistress praising the beauty of the stars which were shining brightly over her head, saying that she ought to know he could not give them to her.  If Lord Albemarle had been ambassador to the court of France at the time of the rupture between France and England, he would have arranged all difficulties amicably, and the unfortunate war by which France lost Canada would not have taken place.  There is no doubt that the harmony between two nations depends very often upon their respective ambassadors, when there is any danger of a rupture.