Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV. and of the Regency — Volume 04

Produced by David Widger
Being the Secret Memoirs of the Mother of the Regent, MADAME ELIZABETH-CHARLOTTE OF BAVARIA, DUCHESSE D'ORLEANS.
Victor Amadeus II. The Grand Duchess, Consort of Cosimo II. of Florence The Duchesse de Lorraine, Elizabeth-Charlotte d'Orleans The Duc du Maine The Duchesse du Maine Louvois Louis XV. Anecdotes and Historical Particulars of Various Persons Explanatory Notes
It is said that the King of Sicily is always in ill humour, and that he is always quarrelling with his mistresses. He and Madame de Verrue have quarrelled, they say, for whole days together. I wonder how the good Queen can love him with such constancy; but she is a most virtuous person and patience itself. Since the King had no mistresses he lives upon better terms with her. Devotion has softened his heart and his temper.
Madame de Verrue is, I dare say, forty-eight years of age (1718). I shared some of the profits of her theft by buying of her 160 medals of gold, the half of those which she stole from the King of Sicily. She had also boxes filled with silver medals, but they were all sold in England.
The Grand Duchess has declared to me, that, from the day on which she set out for Florence, she thought of nothing but her return, and the means of executing this design as soon as she should be able.
No one could approve of her deserting her husband, and the more particularly as she speaks very well of him, and describes the manner of living at Florence as like a terrestrial paradise.
She does not think herself unfortunate for having travelled, and looks upon all the grandeur she enjoyed at Florence as not to be compared with the unrestrained way of living in which she indulges here. She is very amusing when she relates her own history, in the course of which she by no means flatters herself.
Indeed, cousin, I say to her often, you do not flatter yourself, but you really tell things which make against you.
Ah, no matter, she replies, I care not, provided I never see the Grand Duke again.