The contract was soon after signed.  M. de Lorges gave no dowry with his daughter, but she was to inherit something upon the death of M. Fremont.  We carried this contract to the King, who smiled and bantered M. de Lauzun.  M. de Lauzun replied, that he was only too happy, since it was the first time since his return that he had seen the King smile at him.  The marriage took place without delay:  there were only seven or eight persons present at the ceremony.  M. de Lauzun would undress himself alone with his valet de chambre, and did not enter the apartment of his wife until after everybody had left it, and she was in bed with the curtains closed, and nobody to meet him on his passage.  His wife received company in bed, as mine had done.  Nobody was able to understand this marriage; and all foresaw that a rupture would speedily be brought about by the well-known temper of M. de Lauzun.  In effect, this is what soon happened.  The Marechal de Lorges, remaining still in weak health, was deemed by the King unable to take the field again, and his army given over to the command of another General.  M. de Lauzun thus saw all his hopes of advancement at an end, and, discontented that the Marechal had done nothing for him, broke off all connection with the family, took away Madame de Lauzun from her mother (to the great grief of the latter; who doted upon this daughter), and established her in a house of his own adjoining the Assumption, in the Faubourg Saint-Honore.  There she had to endure her husband’s continual caprices, but little removed in their manifestation from madness.  Everybody cast blame upon him, and strongly pitied her and her father and mother; but nobody was surprised.

A few days after the marriage of M. de Lauzun, as the King was being wheeled in his easy chair in the gardens at Versailles, he asked me for many minute particulars concerning the family of the Marechal de Lorges.  He then set himself to joke with me upon the marriage of M. de Lauzun—­ and upon mine.  He said to me, in spite of that gravity which never quitted him, that he had learnt from the Marechal I had well acquitted myself, but that he believed the Marechal had still better news.

The loss of two illustrious men about this time, made more noise than that of two of our grand ladies.  The first of these men was La Fontaine, so well known by his “Fables” and stories, and who, nevertheless, was so heavy in conversation.  The other was Mignard—­so illustrious by his pencil:  he had an only daughter—­perfectly beautiful:  she is repeated in several of those magnificent historical pictures which adorn the grand gallery of Versailles and its two salons, and which have had no slight share in irritating all Europe against the King, and in leaguing it still more against his person than his realm.