The first, relative to the Comte de Sponheim, who was the Duc de Deux-Ponts, and next in succession to the Palatinate and Electorate of Bavaria.  He was thought to be a great friend to the King, and had made several long sojourns in France.  He came frequently to see Madame.  M. Duclos told us that the Duc de Deux-Ponts, having learned, at Deux-Ponts, the attempt on the King’s life, immediately set out in a carriage for Versailles:  “But remark,” said he, “the spirit of ‘courtisanerie’ of a Prince, who may be Elector of Bavaria and the Palatinate tomorrow.  This was not enough.  When he arrived within ten leagues of Paris, he put on an enormous pair of jack-boots, mounted a post-horse, and arrived in the court of the palace cracking his whip.  If this had been real impatience, and not charlatanism, he would have taken horse twenty leagues from Paris.”—­“I don’t agree with you,” said a gentleman whom I did not know; “impatience sometimes seizes one towards the end of an undertaking, and one employs the readiest means then in one’s power.  Besides, the Duc de Deux-Ponts might wish, by showing himself thus on horseback, to serve the King, to whom he is attached, by proving to Frenchmen how greatly he is beloved and honoured in other countries.”  Duclos resumed:  “Well,” said he, “do you know the story of M. de C-----?  The first day the King saw company, after the attempt of Damiens, M. de C----- pushed so vigorously through the crowd that he was one of the first to come into the King’s presence, but he had on so shabby a black coat that it caught the King’s attention, who burst out laughing, and said, ’Look at C-----, he has had the skirt of his coat torn off.’  M. de C----- looked as if he was only then first conscious of his loss, and said, ’Sire, there is such a multitude hurrying to see Your Majesty, that I was obliged to fight my way through them, and, in the effort, my coat has been torn.’—­’Fortunately it was not worth much,’ said the Marquis de Souvre, ’and you could not have chosen a worse one to sacrifice on the occasion.’”

Madame de Pompadour had been very judiciously advised to get her husband, M. le Normand, sent to Constantinople, as Ambassador.  This would have a little diminished the scandal caused by seeing Madame de Pompadour, with the title of Marquise, at Court, and her husband Farmer General at Paris.  But he was so attached to a Paris life, and to his opera habits, that he could not be prevailed upon to go.  Madame employed a certain M. d’Arboulin, with whom she had been acquainted before she was at Court, to negotiate this affair.  He applied to a Mademoiselle Rem, who had been an opera-dancer, and who was M. le Normand’s mistress.  She made him very fine promises; but she was like him, and preferred a Paris life.  She would do nothing in it.