After my husband’s death I saw Grancey only once; I met her in the garden.  When she ceased to be handsome, she fell into utter despair; and so great a change took place in her appearance that no one would have known her.  Her nose, before so beautiful, grew long and large, and was covered with pimples, over each of which she put a patch; this had a very singular effect; the red and white paint, too, did not adhere to her face.  Her eyes were hollow and sunken, and the alteration which this had caused in her face cannot be imagined.  In Spain they, lock up all the ladies at night, even to the septuagenary femmes de chambre.  When Grancey followed our Queen to Spain as dame d’atour, she was locked up in the evening, and was in great grief about it.

When she was dying, she cried, “Ah, mon Dieu, must I die, who have never once thought of death?”

She had never done anything but sit at play with her lovers until five or six o’clock in the morning, feast, and smoke tobacco, and follow uncontrolled her natural inclinations.

When she reached her climacteric, she said, in despair, “Alas, I am growing old, I shall have no more children.”

This was exceedingly amusing; and her friends, as well as her enemies, laughed at it.  She once had a high dispute with Madame de Bouillon.  One evening, Grancey chose to hide herself in one of the recesses formed by the windows in the chamber of the former lady, who, not thinking she was heard, conversed very freely with the Marquise d’Allure, respecting the libertine life of Grancey; in the course of which she said several strange things respecting the treatment which her lovers had experienced from her.  Grancey at length rushed out, and fell to abusing Madame de Bouillon like a Billingsgate.  The latter was not silent, and some exceedingly elegant discourse passed between them.  Madame de Bouillon made a complaint against Grancey; in the first place, for having listened to her conversation; and in the second, for having insulted her in her own house.  Monsieur reproved Grancey; told her that she had brought this inconvenience upon herself by her own indiscretion, and ordered her to be reconciled with her adversary.

“How can I,” said Grancey, “be reconciled to Madame de Bouillon, after all the wicked things she has said about me?” But after a moment’s reflection she added, “Yes, I can, for she did not say I was ugly.”

They afterwards embraced, and made it up.

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Monsieur was taken ill at ten o’clock at night, but he did not die until the next day at noon.  I can never think of this night without horror.  I remained with him from ten at night until five the next morning, when he lost all consciousness.—­[The Duc d’Orleans died of apoplexy on the 9th June, 1701]

The Electors of Germany would not permit Monsieur to write to them in the same style as the King did.