“M. de Landsmath had a thundering voice.  When he came into the King’s apartment he found the Dauphin and Mesdames, his Majesty’s daughters, there; the Princesses, in tears, surrounded the King’s bed.  Send out all these weeping women, Sire,’ said the old equerry; ’I want to speak to you alone:  The King made a sign to the Princesses to withdraw.  ‘Come,’ said Landsmath, ’your wound is nothing; you had plenty of waistcoats and flannels on.’  Then uncovering his breast, ‘Look here,’ said he, showing four or five great scars, ’these are something like wounds; I received them thirty years ago; now cough as loud as you can.’  The King did so.  ‘’Tis nothing at all,’ said Landsmath; ’you must laugh at it; we shall hunt a stag together in four days.’—­’But suppose the blade was poisoned,’ said the King.  ‘Old grandams’ tales,’ replied Landsmath; ’if it had been so, the waistcoats and flannels would have rubbed the poison off.’  The King was pacified, and passed a very good night.

“His Majesty one day asked M. de Landsmath how old he was.  He was aged, and by no means fond of thinking of his age; he evaded the question.  A fortnight later, Louis xv. took a paper out of his pocket and read aloud:  ’On such a day in the month of one thousand six hundred and eighty, was baptised by me, rector of ------, the son of the high and mighty lord,’ etc.  ‘What’s that?’ said Landsmath, angrily; ’has your Majesty been procuring the certificate of my baptism?’—­’There it is, you see, Landsmath,’ said the King.  ’Well, Sire, hide it as fast as you can; a prince entrusted with the happiness of twenty-five millions of people ought not wilfully to hurt the feelings of a single individual.’

“The King learned that Landsmath had lost his confessor, a missionary priest of the parish of Notre-Dame.  It was the custom of the Lazarists to expose their dead with the face uncovered.  Louis xv. wished to try his equerry’s firmness.  ‘You have lost your confessor, I hear,’ said the King.  ’Yes, Sire.’—­’He will be exposed with his face bare?’—­’Such is the custom.’—­’I command you to go and see him.’—­’Sire, my confessor was my friend; it would be very painful to me.’—­’No matter; I command you.’—­’Are you really in earnest, Sire?’—­’Quite so.’—­’It would be the first time in my life that I had disobeyed my sovereign’s order.  I will go.’  The next day the King at his levee, as soon as he perceived Landsmath, said, ’Have you done as I desired you, Landsmath?’—­’Undoubtedly, Sire.’—­’Well, what did you see?’—­’Faith, I saw that your Majesty and I are no great shakes!’

“At the death of Queen Maria Leczinska, M. Campan,—­[Her father-in-law, afterwards secretary to Marie Antoinette.]—­then an officer of the chamber, having performed several confidential duties, the King asked Madame Adelaide how he should reward him.  She requested him to create an office in his household of master of the wardrobe, with a salary of a thousand crowns.  ‘I will do so,’ said the King; ’it will be an honourable title; but tell Campan not to add a single crown to his expenses, for you will see they will never pay him.’