“Alas! my heart is sad, sire; of all other pain, the pain of looking back into the past is the most bitter.  I see myself again a young man, the Arouet to whom Ninon de l’Enclos gave her library and a pension, and who was confined for twenty years to the Bastile because he loved God and the king too little, and the charming Marquise de Villiers and some other ladies of the court too much.  Besides these exalted ladies, there was a beautiful young maiden whom I loved—­perhaps because she had one quality which I had never remarked in the possession of my more noble mistresses—­she was innocent!  Ah, friends, you should have seen Phillis, and you would have confessed that no rose-bud was lovelier, no lily purer, than she.  Phillis was the daughter of a gypsy and a mouse-catcher, and danced on the tight-rope in the city-gardens.”

“Ah, it appears to me the goddess of innocence dances always upon the tight-rope in this world,” said the king.  “I should not be surprised to hear that even your little Phillis had a fall.”

“Sire, she fell, but in my arms; and we swore eternal love and constancy.  You all know from experience the quality and fate of such oaths; they are the kindling-wood upon which the fire of love is sustained; but, alas, kindling and fire soon burnt out!  Who is responsible?  Our fire burned long; but, think you my Phillis, whom I had removed from the tight-rope, and exalted to a dancer upon the stage, was so innocent and naive, as to believe that our love must at last be crowned with marriage!  I, however, was a republican, and feared all crowns.  I declared that Ninon de l’Enclos had made me swear never to marry, lest my grandchildren should fall in love with me, as hers had done with her.”

“Precaution is praiseworthy,” said La Mettrie.  “The devil’s grandmother had also a husband, and her grandsons might have fallen in love with her.”

“Phillis did not take me for the devil’s grandfather, but for the devil himself.  She cried, and shrieked, and cast my oaths of constancy in my teeth.  I did not die of remorse, nor she of love, and to prove her constancy, she married a rich Duke de Ventadour.”

“And you, no doubt, gave away the bride, and swore you had never known a purer woman!”

“No, sire, I was at that time again in the Bastile, and left it only as an exile from France.  When at last I was allowed to return to Paris, I sought out my Duchess de Ventadour, my Phillis of former times.  I found her a distinguished lady; she had forgotten the follies of her youth; had forgotten her father, the rope-dancer; her mother, the mouse-catcher.  She had no remembrance of the young Arouet, to whom she had sworn to say only ‘tu’ and ‘toi.’  Now she was grave and dignified, and ‘Vous, monsieur,’ was on her fair lip.  Thanks to the heraldry office, she had become the daughter of a distinguished Spaniard, blessed with at least seven ancestors.  Phillis gave good dinners, had good wine, and the world overlooked her somewhat obscure