"I will not leave it until it is finished," I replied, "and I will do my utmost to be as accurate as His Highness requires."
The duke made a sign to Oudard, as much as to say, "Not bad for a country lad."
Then, going before me, he said—
"Come into this room and sit down at that table."
And with these words he pointed out a desk to me.
"Here you will be undisturbed."
He then opened a bundle in which about fifty pages were arranged in order, covered on both sides with his big handwriting and numbered at the front of each page.
"See," he said, "copy from here to there: if you finish before I come back, you must wait for me; I have several corrections to make in certain passages, and I will make them as I dictate them to you."
I sat down and set to work at my task. The work with which I was entrusted was concerned with an event which had recently made a great stir, and which could not fail to take up the attention of Paris. This was the claim made by Maria-Stella-Petronilla Chiappini, Baroness of Sternberg, to the rank and fortune of the Duc d'Orléans, which she contended belonged to her.