[Count de Toulongeon was elder brother to Count Grammont, who, by his death, in 1679, became, according to St. Evremond, on that event, one of the richest noblemen at court.—­See St. Evremond’s Works. vol. ii., p. 327.]

“Notwithstanding all his care; Miss Hamilton will have Semeat,—­[A country seat belonging to the family of the Grammonts.]—­with the Chevalier de Grammont, as an indemnification for the Norfolks and Richmonds.  Now, have you any thing to advance against this project?  For I will bet you an hundred louis, that everything will happen as I have foretold it.”

At this time the king’s attachment to Miss Stewart was so public, that every person perceived, that if she was but possessed of art, she might become as absolute a mistress over his conduct as she was over his heart.  This was a fine opportunity for those who had experience and ambition.  The Duke of Buckingham formed the design of governing her, in order to ingratiate himself with the king:  God knows what a governor he would have been, and what a head he was possessed of, to guide another; however, he was the properest man in the world to insinuate himself with Miss Stewart:  she was childish in her behaviour, and laughed at everything, and her taste for frivolous amusements, though unaffected, was only allowable in a girl about twelve or thirteen years old.  A child, however, she was, in every other respect, except playing with a doll:  blind man’s buff was her most favourite amusement:  she was building castles of cards, while the deepest play was going on in her apartments, where you saw her surrounded by eager courtiers, who handed her the cards, or young architects, who endeavoured to imitate her.

She had, however, a passion for music, and had some taste for singing.  The Duke of Buckingham, who built the finest towers of cards imaginable, had an agreeable voice:  she had no aversion to scandal:  and the duke was both the father and the mother of scandal, he made songs, and invented old women’s stories, with which she was delighted; but his particular talent consisted in turning into ridicule whatever was ridiculous in other people, and in taking them off, even in their presence, without their perceiving it:  in short, he knew how to act all parts with so much grace and pleasantry, that it was difficult to do without him, when he had a mind to make himself agreeable; and he made himself so necessary to Miss Stewart’s amusement, that she sent all over the town to seek for him, when he did not attend the king to her apartments.

He was extremely handsome, and still thought himself much more so than he really was:  although he had a great deal of discernment, yet his vanity made him mistake some civilities as intended for his person, which were only bestowed on his wit and drollery:  in short, being seduced by too good an opinion of his own merit, he forgot his first project and his Portuguese mistress, in order to pursue a fancy in which he mistook himself; for he no sooner began to act a serious part with Miss Stewart, than he met with so severe a repulse that he abandoned, at once, all his designs upon her:  however, the familiarity she had procured him with the king, opened the way to those favours to which he was afterwards advanced.