Her questions to the oracle alluded only to secret affairs which she was curious to know, and she often found truths with which I was not myself acquainted, through the answers.  She wished me to teach her the cabalistic science, but she never pressed her wish upon me.  She, however, commissioned M. de Melfort to tell me that, if I would teach her, she would get me an appointment with an income of twenty-five thousand francs.  Alas! it was impossible!  I was madly in love with her, but I would not for the world have allowed her to guess my feelings.  My pride was the corrective of my love.  I was afraid of her haughtiness humiliating me, and perhaps I was wrong.  All I know is that I even now repent of having listened to a foolish pride.  It is true that I enjoyed certain privileges which she might have refused me if she had known my love.

One day she wished my oracle to tell her whether it was possible to cure a cancer which Madame de la Popeliniere had in the breast; I took it in my head to answer that the lady alluded to had no cancer, and was enjoying excellent health.

“How is that?” said the duchess; “everyone in Paris believes her to be suffering from a cancer, and she has consultation upon consultation.  Yet I have faith in the oracle.”

Soon afterwards, seeing the Duke de Richelieu at the court, she told him she was certain that Madame de la Popeliniere was not ill.  The marshal, who knew the secret, told her that she was mistaken; but she proposed a wager of a hundred thousand francs.  I trembled when the duchess related the conversation to me.

“Has he accepted your wages?” I enquired, anxiously.

“No; he seemed surprised; you are aware that he ought to know the truth.”

Three or four days after that conversation, the duchess told me triumphantly that M. de Richelieu had confessed to her that the cancer was only a ruse to excite the pity of her husband, with whom Madame de la Popeliniere wanted to live again on good terms; she added that the marshal had expressed his willingness to pay one thousand Louis to know how she had discovered the truth.

“If you wish to earn that sum,” said the duchess to me, “I will tell him all about it.”

But I was afraid of a snare; I knew the temper of the marshal, and the story of the hole in the wall through which he introduced himself into that lady’s apartment, was the talk of all Paris.  M. de la Popeliniere himself had made the adventure more public by refusing to live with his wife, to whom he paid an income of twelve thousand francs.

The Duchess de Chartres had written some charming poetry on that amusing affair; but out of her own coterie no one knew it except the king, who was fond of the princess, although she was in the habit of scoffing at him.  One day, for instance, she asked him whether it was true that the king of Prussia was expected in Paris.  Louis XV. having answered that it was an idle rumour,