A report prevailed at St. Cloud for several years that the ghost of the late Madame appeared near a fountain where she had been accustomed to sit during the great heats, for it was a very cool spot.  One evening a servant of the Marquis de Clerambault, having gone thither to draw water from the fountain, saw something white sitting there without a head.  The phantom immediately arose to double its height.  The poor servant fled in great terror, and said when he entered the house that he had seen Madame.  He fell sick and died.  Then the captain of the Chateau, thinking there was something hidden beneath this affair, went to the fountain some days afterwards, and, seeing the phantom, he threatened it with a sound drubbing if it did not declare what it was.

The phantom immediately said, “Ah, M. de Lastera, do me no harm; I am poor old Philipinette.”

This was an old woman in the village, seventy-seven years old, who had lost her teeth, had blear eyes, a great mouth and large nose; in short, was a very hideous figure.  They were going to take her to prison, but I interceded for her.  When she came to thank me I asked her what fancy it was that had induced her to go about playing the ghost instead of sleeping.

She laughed and said, “I cannot much repent what I have done.  At my time of life one sleeps little; but one wants something to amuse one’s mind.  In all the sports of my youth nothing diverted me so much as to play the ghost.  I was very sure that if I could not frighten folks with my white dress I could do so with my ugly face.  The cowards made so many grimaces when they saw it that I was ready to die with laughing.  This nightly amusement repaid me for the trouble of carrying a pannier by day.”

If the late Madame was better treated than I was it was for the purpose of pleasing the King of England, who was very fond of his sister.

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Madame de La Fayette, who has written the life of the late Madame, was her intimate friend; but she was still more intimately the friend of M. de La Rochefoucauld, who remained with her to the day of his death.  It is said that these two friends wrote together the romance of the Princesse de Cloves.

SECTION XVIII.—­THE DUC DE BERRI.

It is not surprising that the manners of the Duc de Berri were not very elegant, since he was educated by Madame de Maintenon and the Dauphine as a valet de chambre.  He was obliged to wait upon the old woman at table, and at all other times upon the Dauphine’s ladies, with whom he was by day and night.  They made a mere servant of him, and used to talk to him in a tone of very improper familiarity, saying, “Berri, go and fetch me my work; bring me that table; give me my scissors.”

Their manner of behaving to him was perfectly shameful.  This had the effect of degrading his disposition, and of giving him base propensities; so that it is not surprising he should have been violently in love with an ugly femme de chambre.  His good father was naturally of rather a coarse disposition.