“Comte de Tesse, father of the last Count of that name, who left no children, was first equerry to Queen Maria Leczinska.  She esteemed his virtues, but often diverted herself at the expense of his simplicity.  One day, when the conversation turned on the noble military, actions by which the French nobility was distinguished, the Queen said to the Count:  ’And your family, M. de Tesse, has been famous, too, in the field.’—­’Ah, Madame, we have all been killed in our masters’ service!’—­’How rejoiced I am,’ replied the Queen, ‘that you have revived to tell me of it.’  The son of this worthy M. de Tesse was married to the amiable and highly gifted daughter of the Duc d’Ayen, afterwards Marechale de Noailles.  He was exceedingly fond of his daughter-in-law, and never could speak of her without emotion.  The Queen, to please him, often talked to him about the young Countess, and one day asked him which of her good qualities seemed to him most conspicuous.  ‘Her gentleness, Madame, her gentleness,’ said he, with tears in his eyes; ’she is so mild, so soft,—­as soft as a good carriage.’—­’Well,’ said her Majesty, ’that’s an excellent comparison for a first equerry.’

“In 1730 Queen Maria Leczinska, going to mass, met old Marechal Villars, leaning on a wooden crutch not worth fifteen pence.  She rallied him about it, and the Marshal told her that he had used it ever since he had received a wound which obliged him to add this article to the equipments of the army.  Her Majesty, smiling, said she thought this crutch so unworthy of him that she hoped to induce him to give it up.  On returning home she despatched M. Campan to Paris with orders to purchase at the celebrated Germain’s the handsomest cane, with a gold enamelled crutch, that he could find, and carry it without delay to Marechal Villars’s hotel, and present it to him from her.  He was announced accordingly, and fulfilled his commission.  The Marshal, in attending him to the door, requested him to express his gratitude to the Queen, and said that he had nothing fit to offer to an officer who had the honour to belong to her Majesty; but he begged him to accept of his old stick, saying that his grandchildren would probably some day be glad to possess the cane with which he had commanded at Marchiennes and Denain.  The known frugality of Marechal Villars appears in this anecdote; but he was not mistaken with respect to the estimation in which his stick would be held.  It was thenceforth kept with veneration by M. Campan’s family.  On the 10th of August, 1792, a house which I occupied on the Carrousel, at the entrance of the Court of the Tuileries, was pillaged and nearly burnt down.  The cane of Marechal Villars was thrown into the Carrousel as of no value, and picked up by my servant.  Had its old master been living at that period we should not have witnessed such a deplorable day.