be with me now; but he was obliged to set off on a long journey.”  I assented to what she said.  “He is very handsome,” said she, “and loves me with all his heart.  He promised me an allowance; but I love him disinterestedly; and, if he would let me, I would follow him to Poland.”  She afterwards talked to me about her parents, and about M. Lebel, whom she knew by the name of Durand.  “My mother,” said she, “kept a large grocer’s shop, and my father was a man of some consequence; he belonged to the Six Corps, and that, as everybody knows, is an excellent thing.  He was twice very near being head-bailiff.”  Her mother had become bankrupt at her father’s death, but the Count had come to her assistance, and settled upon her fifteen hundred francs a year, besides giving her six thousand francs down.  On the sixth day, she was brought to bed, and, according to my instructions, she was told the child was a girl, though in reality it was a boy; she was soon to be told that it was dead, in order that no trace of its existence might remain for a certain time.  It was eventually to be restored to its mother.  The King gave each of his children about ten thousand francs a year.  They inherited after each other as they died off, and seven or eight were already dead.  I returned to Madame de Pompadour, to whom I had written every day by Guimard.  The next day, the King sent for me into the room; he did not say a word as to the business I had been employed upon; but he gave me a large gold snuff-box, containing two rouleaux of twenty-five louis each.  I curtsied to him, and retired.  Madame asked me a great many questions of the young lady, and laughed heartily at her simplicity, and at all she had said about the Polish nobleman.  “He is disgusted with the Princess, and, I think, will return to Poland for ever, in two months.”—­“And the young lady?” said I.  “She will be married in the country,” said she, “with a portion of forty thousand crowns at the most and a few diamonds.”  This little adventure, which initiated me into the King’s secrets, far from procuring for me increased marks of kindness from him, seemed to produce a coldness towards me; probably because he was ashamed of my knowing his obscure amours.  He was also embarrassed by the services Madame de Pompadour had rendered him on this occasion.

Besides the little mistresses of the Parc-aux-cerfs, the King had sometimes intrigues with ladies of the Court, or from Paris, who wrote to him.  There was a Madame de L-----, who, though married to a young and amiable man, with two hundred thousand francs a year, wished absolutely to become his mistress.  She contrived to have a meeting with him:  and the King, who knew who she was, was persuaded that she was really madly in love with him.  There is no knowing what might have happened, had she not died.  Madame was very much alarmed, and was only relieved by her death from inquietude.  A circumstance took place at this time which doubled Madame’s