“Among those who came about me was the bridegroom himself, whom I had never yet seen.  So anxious was he to have his first acquaintance incognito that he set off from Paris the moment he was apprised of my arrival in France and presented himself as the Prince’s page.  As he had outgrown the figure of his portrait, I received him as such; but the Prince, being better pleased with me than he had apprehended he should be, could scarcely avoid discovering himself.  During our journey to Paris I myself disclosed the interest with which the supposed page had inspired me.  ‘I hope,’ exclaimed I, ’my Prince will allow his page to attend me, for I like him much.’

“What was my surprise when the Duc de Penthievre presented me to the Prince and I found in him the page for whom I had already felt such an interest!  We both laughed and wanted words to express our mutual sentiments.  This was really love at first sight.

[The young Prince was enraptured at finding his lovely bride so superior in personal charms to the description which had been given of her, and even to the portrait sent to him from Turin.  Indeed, she must have been a most beautiful creature, for when I left her in the year 1792, though then five-and-forty years of age, from the freshness of her complexion, the elegance of her figure, and the dignity of her deportment, she certainly did not appear to be more than thirty.  She had a fine head of hair, and she took great pleasure in showing it unornamented.  I remember one day, on her coming hastily from the bath, as she was putting on her dress, her cap falling off, her hair completely covered her!

The circumstances of her death always make me shudder at the recollection of this incident!  I have been assured by Mesdames Mackau, de Soucle, the Comtesse de Noailles (not Duchesse, as Mademoiselle Bertin has created her in her Memoirs of that name), and others, that the Princesse de Lamballe was considered the most beautiful and accomplished Princess at the Court of Louis XV., adorned with all the grace, virtue, and elegance of manner which so eminently distinguished her through life.]

“The Duc de Chartres, then possessing a very handsome person and most insinuating address, soon gained the affections of the amiable Mademoiselle Penthievre.  Becoming thus a member of the same family, he paid me the most assiduous attention.  From my being his sister-in-law, and knowing he was aware of my great attachment to his young wife, I could have no idea that his views were criminally levelled at my honour, my happiness, and my future peace of mind.  How, therefore, was I astonished and shocked when he discovered to me his desire to supplant the legitimate object of my affections, whose love for me equalled mine for him!  I did not expose this baseness of the Duc de Chartres, out of filial affection for my adopted father, the Duc de Penthievre; out of the love I bore his amiable daughter, she being pregnant;