CHAPTER XCVII

To go back, now, to the remaining events of the year 1719.

The Marquise de Charlus, sister of Mezieres, and mother of the Marquis de Levi, who has since become a duke and a peer, died rich and old.  She was the exact picture of an “old clothes” woman and was thus subject to many insults from those who did not know her, which she by no means relished.  To relieve a little the seriousness of these memoirs, I will here relate an amusing adventure of which she was heroine.

She was very avaricious, and a great gambler.  She would have passed the night up to her knees in water in order to play.  Heavy gambling at lansquenet was carried on at Paris in the evening, at Madame la Princesse de Conti’s.  Madame de Charlus supped there one Friday, between the games, much company being present.  She was no better clad than at other times, and wore a head-dress, in vogue at that day, called commode, not fastened, but put on or taken off like a wig or a night-cap.  It was fashionable, then, to wear these headdresses very high.

Madame de Charlus was near the Archbishop of Rheims, Le Tellier.  She took a boiled egg, that she cracked, and in reaching for some salt, set her head dress on fire, at a candle near, without perceiving it.  The Archbishop, who saw her all in flames, seized the head-dress and flung it upon the ground.  Madame de Charlus, in her surprise, and indignant at seeing her self thus uncovered, without knowing why, threw her egg in the Archbishop’s face, and made him a fine mess.

Nothing but laughter was heard; and all the company were in convulsions of mirth at the grey, dirty, and hoary head of Madame de Charlus, and the Archbishop’s omelette; above all, at the fury and abuse of Madame de Charlus, who thought she had been affronted, and who was a long time before she would understand the cause, irritated at finding herself thus treated before everybody.  The head-dress was burnt, Madame la Princesse de Conti gave her another, but before it was on her head everybody had time to contemplate her charms, and she to grow in fury.  Her, husband died three months after her.  M. de Levi expected to find treasures; there had been such; but they had taken wing and flown away.

About this time appeared some verses under the title of Philippiques, which were distributed with extraordinary promptitude and abundance.  La Grange, formerly page of Madame la Princesse de Conti, was the author, and did not deny it.  All that hell could vomit forth, true and false, was expressed in the most beautiful verses, most poetic in style, and with all the art and talent imaginable.  M. le Duc d’Orleans knew it, and wished to see the poem, but he could not succeed in getting it, for no one dared to show it to him.