LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Louis the Fifteenth

“It Was an Indigestion

Madame du Hausset

Madame de Pompadour

Madame Adelaide

Madame Sophie

Madame Elizabeth

Mirabeau and the Queen

Princess de Lamballe

Marie Antoinette in the Temple

Interviewing Little Louis

Marie Antoinette to the Guillotine

ADVERTISEMENT.

[From the London Magazine, no.  III.  New series P. 439.]

We were obliged by circumstances, at one time, to read all the published memoirs relative to the reign of Louis XV., and had the opportunity of reading many others which may not see the light for a long time yet to come, as their publication at present would materially militate against the interest of the descendants of the writers; and we have no hesitation in saying that the Memoirs of Madame du Hausset are the only perfectly sincere ones amongst all those we know.  Sometimes, Madame du Hausset mistakes, through ignorance, but never does she wilfully mislead, like Madame Campan, nor keep back a secret, like Madame Roland, and mm.  Bezenval and Ferreires; nor is she ever betrayed by her vanity to invent, like the Due de Lauzun, mm.  Talleyrand, Bertrand de Moleville, Marmontel, Madame d’Epinay, etc.  When Madame du Hausset is found in contradiction with other memoirs of the same period, we should never hesitate to give her account the preference.  Whoever is desirous of accurately knowing the reign of Louis XV. should run over the very wretched history of Lacretelle, merely for the, dates, and afterwards read the two hundred pages of the naive du Hausset, who, in every half page, overturns half a dozen misstatements of this hollow rhetorician.  Madame du Hausset was often separated from the little and obscure chamber in the Palace of Versailles, where resided the supreme power, only by a slight door or curtain, which permitted her to hear all that was said there.  She had for a ‘cher ami’ the greatest practical philosopher of that period, Dr. Quesnay, the founder of political economy.  He was physician to Madame de Pompadour, and one of the sincerest and most single-hearted of men probably in Paris at the time.  He explained to Madame du Hausset many things that, but for his assistance, she would have witnessed without understanding.

INTRODUCTION.

A friend of M. de Marigny (the brother of Madame de Pompadour) called on him one day and found him burning papers.  Taking up a large packet which he was going to throw into the fire “This,” said he, “is the journal of a waiting-woman of my sister’s.  She was a very estimable person, but it is all gossip; to the fire with it!” He stopped, and added, “Don’t you think I am a little like the curate and the barber burning Don Quixote’s romances?”—­“I beg for mercy on this,” said his friend.  “I am fond of anecdotes, and I shall be sure to find some here which will interest me.”  “Take it, then,” said M. de Marigny, and gave it him.