Dr. Chirac was once called to see a lady, and, while he was in her bedchamber, he heard that the price of stock had considerably decreased.  As he happened to be a large holder of the Mississippi Bonds, he was alarmed at the news; and being seated near the patient, whose pulse he was feeling, he said with a deep sigh, “Ah, good God! they keep sinking, sinking, sinking!” The poor sick lady hearing this, uttered a loud shriek; the people ran to her immediately.  “Ah,” said she, “I shall die; M. de Chirac has just said three times, as he felt my pulse, ’They keep sinking!’” The Doctor recovered himself soon, and said, “You dream; your pulse is very healthy, and you are very well.  I was thinking of the Mississippi stocks, upon which I lose my money, because their price sinks.”  This explanation satisfied the sick lady.

The Duc de Sully was subject to frequent fits of abstraction.  One day, having dressed himself to go to church, he forgot nothing but his breeches.  This was in the winter; when he entered the church, he said, “Mon Dieu, it is very cold to-day.”  The persons present said, “Not colder than usual!”—­“Then I am in a fever,” he said.  Some one suggested that he had perhaps not dressed himself so warmly as usual, and, opening his coat, the cause of his being cold was very apparent.

Our late King told me the following anecdote of Queen Christina of Sweden:  That Princess, instead of putting on a nightcap, wrapped her head up in a napkin.  One night she could not sleep, and ordered the musicians to be brought into her bedroom; where, drawing the bed-curtains, she could not be seen by the musicians, but could hear them at her ease.  At length, enchanted at a piece which they had just played, she abruptly thrust her head beyond the curtains, and cried out, “Mort diable! but they sing delightfully!” At this grotesque sight, the Italians, and particularly the castrati, who are not the bravest men in the world, were so frightened that they were obliged to stop short.

In the great gallery at Fontainebleau may still be seen the blood of the man whom she caused to be assassinated; it was to prevent his disclosing some secrets of which he was in possession that she deprived him of life.  He had, in fact, begun to chatter through jealousy of another person who had gained the Queen’s favour.  Christina was very vindictive, and given up to all kinds of debauchery.

Duke Frederick Augustus of Brunswick was delighted with Christina; he said that he had never in his life met a woman who had so much wit, and whose conversation was so truly diverting; he added that it was impossible to be dull with her for a moment.  I observed to him that the Queen in her conversation frequently indulged in very filthy discussions.  “That is true,” replied he, “but she conceals such things in so artful a manner as to take from them all their disgusting features.”  She never could be agreeable to women, for she despised them altogether.