on her contempt for religion, ridiculing M. le Duc de Berry for being devout; and all these things became insupportable to him.  Her gallantries were so prompt, so rapid, so unmeasured, that he could not help seeing them.  Her endless private interviews with M. le Duc d’Orleans, in which everything languished if he was present, made him furious.  Violent scenes frequently took place between them; the last, which occurred at Rambouillet, went so far that Madame la Duchesse de Berry received a kick * * * * , and a menace that she should be shut up in a convent for the rest of her life; and when M. le Duc de Berry fell ill, he was thumbing his hat, like a child, before the King, relating all his grievances, and asking to be delivered from Madame la Duchesse de Berry.  Hitherto I have only alluded to Madame la Duchesse de Berry, but, as will be seen, she became so singular a person when her father was Regent, that I will here make her known more completely than I have yet done.

She was tall, handsome, well made, with, however, but little grace, and had something in her, eyes which made you fear what she was.  Like her father and mother, she spoke well and with facility.  Timid in trifles, yet in other things terrifyingly bold,—­foolishly haughty sometimes, and sometimes mean to the lowest degree,—­it may be said that she was a model of all the vices, avarice excepted; and was all the more dangerous because she had art and talent.  I am not accustomed to over-colour the picture I am obliged to present to render things understood, and it will easily be perceived how strictly I am reserved upon the ladies, and upon all gallantries, not intimately associated with what may be called important matters.  I should be so here, more than in any other case, from self-love, if not from respect for the sex and dignity of the person.  The considerable part I played in bringing about Madame la Duchesse de Berry’s marriage, and the place that Madame de Saint-Simon, in spite of herself and of me, occupied in connection with her, would be for me reasons more than enough for silence, if I did not feel that silence would throw obscurity over all the sequel of this history.  It is then to the truth that I sacrifice my self-love, and with the same truthfulness I will say that if I had known or merely suspected, that the Princess was so bad as she showed herself directly after her marriage, and always more and more since, she would never have become Duchesse de Berry.

I have already told how she annoyed M. le Duc de Berry by ridiculing his devotion.  In other ways she put his patience to severe trials, and more than once was in danger of public exposure.  She partook of few meals in private, at which she did not get so drunk as to lose consciousness, and to bring up all she had taken on every side.  The presence of M. le Duc de Berry, of M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans, of ladies with whom she was not on familiar terms, in no way restrained her.  She complained even of M. le Duc de Berry for not doing as she did.  She often treated her father with a haughtiness which was terrifying on all accounts.