Before I finish this account of my father, I will here relate adventures which happened to him, and which I ought to have placed before his second marriage.  A disagreement arose between my father and M. de Vardes, and still existed long after everybody thought they were reconciled.  It was ultimately agreed that upon an early day, at about twelve o’clock, they should meet at the Porte St. Honore, then a very deserted spot, and that the coach of M. de Vardes should run against my father’s, and a general quarrel arise between masters and servants.  Under cover of this quarrel, a duel could easily take place, and would seem simply to arise out of the broil there and then occasioned.  On the morning appointed, my father called as usual upon several of his friends, and, taking one of them for second, went to the Porte St. Honore.  There everything fell out just as had been arranged.  The coach of M. de Vardes struck against the other.  My father leaped out, M. de Vardes did the same, and the duel took place.  M. de Vardes fell, and was disarmed.  My father wished to make him beg for his life; he would not do this, but confessed himself vanquished.  My father’s coach being the nearest, M. de Vardes got into it.  He fainted on the road.  They separated afterwards like brave people, and went their way.  Madame de Chatillon, since of Mecklenburg, lodged in one of the last houses near the Porte St. Honore, and at the noise made by the coaches, put, her head to the window, and coolly looked at the whole of the combat.  It soon made a great noise.  My father was complimented everywhere.  M. de Vardes was sent for ten or twelve days to the Bastille.  My father and he afterwards became completely reconciled to each other.

The other adventure was of gentler ending.  The Memoirs of M. de la Rochefoucauld appeared.  They contained certain atrocious and false statements against my father, who so severely resented the calumny, that he seized a pen, and wrote upon the margin of the book, “The author has told a lie.”  Not content with this, he went to the bookseller, whom he discovered with some difficulty, for the book was not sold publicly at first.  He asked to see all the copies of the work, prayed, promised, threatened, and at last succeeded in obtaining them.  Then he took a pen and wrote in all of them the same marginal note.  The astonishment of the bookseller may be imagined.  He was not long in letting M. de la Rochefoucauld know what had happened to his books:  it may well be believed that he also was astonished.  This affair made great noise.  My father, having truth on his side, wished to obtain public satisfaction from M. de la Rochefoucauld.  Friends, however, interposed, and the matter was allowed to drop.  But M. de la Rochefoucauld never pardoned my father; so true it is that we less easily forget the injuries we inflict than those that we receive.