Maisons was soon informed of it, and did not let my resolution grow, cold.  M. le Duc d’Orleans urged me to go and sleep a night in Paris.  Upon arriving there, I found a note from Maisons, who had already sent an ocean of compliments to me by the Prince and the Duke.  This note, for reasons to be told me afterwards, appointed a meeting at eleven o’clock this night, in the plain behind the Invalides, in a very mysterious manner.  I went there with an old coachman of my mother’s and a lackey to put my people off the scent.  There was a little moonlight.  Maisons in a small carriage awaited me.  We soon met.  He mounted into my coach.  I never could comprehend the mystery of this meeting.  There was nothing on his part but advances, compliments, protestations, allusions to the former interview of our fathers; only such things, in fact, as a man of cleverness and breeding says when he wishes to form a close intimacy with any one.  Not a word that he said was of importance or of a private nature.

I replied in the civillest manner possible to the abundance he bestowed upon me.  I expected afterwards something that would justify the hour, the place, the mystery, in a word, of our interview.  What was my surprise to hear no syllable upon these points.  The only reason Maisons gave for our secret interview was that from that time he should be able to come and see me at Versailles with less inconvenience, and gradually increase the number and the length of his visits until people grew accustomed to see him there!  He then begged me not to visit him in Paris, because his house was always too full of people.  This interview lasted little less than half an hour.  It was long indeed, considering what passed.  We separated with much politeness, and the first time he went to Versailles he called upon me towards the middle of the day.

In a short time he visited me every Sunday.  Our conversation by degrees became more serious.  I did not fail to be on my guard, but drew him out upon various subjects; he being very willing.

We were on this footing when, returning to my room at Marly about midday-on Sunday, the 29th of July, I found a lackey of Maisons with a note from him, in which he conjured me to quit all business and come immediately to his house at Paris, where he would wait for me alone, and where I should find that something was in question, that could not suffer the slightest delay, that could not even be named in writing, and which was of the most extreme importance.  This lackey had long since arrived, and had sent my people everywhere in search of me.  I was engaged that day to dine with M. and Madame de Lauzun.  To have broken my engagement would have been to set the curiosity and the malignity of M. de Lauzun at work.  I dared not disappear; therefore I gave orders to my coachman, and as soon as I had dined I vanished.  Nobody saw me get into my chaise; and I quickly arrived at Paris, and immediately hastened to Maisons’ with eagerness easy to imagine.