meal; her age, her rarity at Court, her accoutrements, and her face, provoked the Princesses to make fun of her in whispers with their fair visitors.  She perceived this, and without being embarrassed, took them up so sharply, that they were silenced, and looked down.  But this was not all:  after the collation she began to talk so freely and yet so humorously about them that they were frightened, and went and made their excuses, and very frankly asked for quarter.  Madame de Gesvres was good enough to grant them this, but said it was only on condition that they learned how to behave.  Never afterwards did they venture to look at her impertinently.  Nothing was ever so magnificent as these soirees of Trianon.  All the flowers of the parterres were renewed every day; and I have seen the King and all the Court obliged to go away because of the tuberoses, the odour of which perfumed the air, but so powerfully, on account of their quantity, that nobody could remain in the garden, although very vast, and stretching like a terrace all along the canal.

CHAPTER XXVI

The Prince d’Harcourt at last obtained permission to wait on the King, after having never appeared at Court for seventeen years.  He had followed the King in all his conquests in the Low Countries and Franche-Comte; but he had remained little at the Court since his voyage to Spain, whither he had accompanied the daughter of Monsieur to the King, Charles II., her husband.  The Prince d’Harcourt took service with Venice, and fought in the Morea until the Republic made peace with the Turks.  He was tall, well made; and, although he looked like a nobleman and had wit, reminded one at the same time of a country actor.  He was a great liar, and a libertine in body and mind; a great spendthrift, a great and impudent swindler, with a tendency to low debauchery, that cursed him all his life.  Having fluttered about a long time after his return, and found it impossible either to live with his wife—­which is not surprising—­or accommodate himself to the Court or to Paris, he set up his rest at Lyons with wine, street-walkers, a society to match, a pack of hounds, and a gaming-table to support his extravagance and enable him to live at the expense of the dupes, the imbeciles, and the sons of fat tradesmen, whom he could lure into his nets.  Thus he spent many years, and seemed to forget that there existed in the world another country besides Lyons.  At last he got tired, and returned to Paris.  The King, who despised him, let him alone, but would not see him; and it was only after two months of begging for him by the Lorraines, that he received permission to present himself.  His wife, the Princesse d’Harcourt, was a favourite of Madame de Maintenon.  The origin of their friendship is traced to the fact that Brancas, the father of the Princess, had been one of the lovers of Madame de Maintenon.  No claim less powerful could have induced the latter to take