leaving me to dress.  I never saw a man so crestfallen as M. de Lorges.  He had confessed what he had done to a clever lawyer, who had much frightened him.  After quitting him, he had hastened to us to make us go and see Pontchartrain.  The most serious things are sometimes accompanied with the most ridiculous.  M. de Lorges upon arriving knocked at the door of a little room which preceded the chamber of Madame de Saint-Simon.  My daughter was rather unwell.  Madame de Saint-Simon thought she was worse, and supposing it was I who had knocked, ran and opened the door.  At the sight of her brother she ran back to her bed, to which he followed her, in order to relate his disaster.  She rang for the windows to be opened, in order that she might see better.  It so happened that she had taken the evening before a new servant, a country girl of sixteen, who slept in the little room.  M. de Lorges, in a hurry to be off, told this girl to make haste in opening the windows, and then to go away and close the door.  At this, the simple girl, all amazed, took her robe and her cotillon, and went upstairs to an old chambermaid, awoke her, and with much hesitation told her what had just happened, and that she had left by the bedside of Madame de Saint Simon a fine gentleman, very young, all powdered, curled, and decorated, who had driven her very quickly out of the chamber.  She was all of a tremble, and much astonished.  She soon learnt who he was.  The story was told to us, and in spite of our disquietude, much diverted us.

We hurried away to the chancellor, and he advised the priest, the witnesses to the signatures of the marriage, and, in fact, all concerned, to keep out of the way, except M. de Lorges, who he assured us had nothing to fear.  We went afterwards to Chamillart, whom we found much displeased, but in little alarm.  The King had ordered an account to be drawn up of the whole affair.  Nevertheless, in spite of the uproar made on all sides, people began to see that the King would not abandon to public dishonour the daughter of Madame de Roquelaure, nor doom to the scaffold or to civil death in foreign countries the nephew of Madame de Soubise.

Friends of M. and Madame de Roquelaure tried to arrange matters.  They represented that it would be better to accept the marriage as it was than to expose a daughter to cruel dishonour.  Strange enough, the Duc and Duchesse de Rohan were the most stormy.  They wished to drive a very hard bargain in the matter, and made proposals so out of the way, that nothing could have been arranged but for the King.  He did what he had never done before in all his life; he entered into all the details; he begged, then commanded as master; he had separate interviews with the parties concerned; and finally appointed the Duc d’Aumont and the chancellor to draw up the conditions of the marriage.