When an Ambassador would make his entry at Paris he has himself announced some days before by the officers whose duty it is to introduce Ambassadors, in order that the usual compliments may be paid him.  To royal Ambassadors a chevalier d’honneur is sent, to those from Venice or Holland the first equerry, and when he is absent or unwell the chief Maitre d’Hotel, who is also sent to the Ambassador from Malta.

The English ladies are said to be much given to running away with their lovers.  I knew a Count von Konigsmark, whom a young English lady followed in the dress of a page.  He had her with him at Chambord, and, as there was no room for her in the castle, he lodged her under a tent which he had put up in the forest.  When we were at the chase one day he told me this adventure.  As I had a great curiosity to see her, I rode towards the tent, and never in my life did I see anything prettier than this girl in the habit of a page.  She had large and beautiful eyes, a charming little nose, and an elegant mouth and teeth.  She smiled when she saw me, for she suspected that the Count had told me the whole story.  Her hair was a beautiful chestnut colour, and hung about her neck in large curls.  After their departure from Chambord, while they were at an inn upon their way to Italy, the innkeeper’s wife ran to the Count, crying, “Sir, make haste upstairs, for your page is lying-in.”  She was delivered of a girl, and the mother and child were soon afterwards placed in a convent near Paris.  While the Count lived he took great care of her, but he died in the Morea, and his pretended page did not long survive him; she displayed great piety in the hour of death.  A friend of the Count’s, and a nephew of Madame de Montespan, took care of the child, and after his death the King gave the little creature a pension.  I believe she is still (1717) in the convent.

The Abbe Perrault founded an annual funeral oration for the Prince de Conde in the Jesuits’ Church, where his heart is deposited.  I shall not upon this occasion call to mind his victories, his courage in war, or his timidity at Court; these are things well known throughout France.

A gentleman of my acquaintance at Paris heard a learned Abbe, who was in the confidence of Descartes, say that the philosopher used often to laugh at his own system, and said, “I have cut them out some work:  we shall see who will be fools enough to undertake it.”

That old Beauvais, the Queen-mother’s first femme de chambre, was acquainted with the secret of her marriage, and this obliged the Queen to put up with whatever the confidante chose to do.  From this circumstance has arisen that custom which gives femmes de chambre so much authority in our apartments.  The Queen-mother, the widow of Louis XIII., not contented with loving Cardinal Mazarin, went the absurd length of marrying him.  He was not a priest, and therefore was not prevented by his orders from contracting matrimony.