“What are you saying, Comte Jean?” asked the maréchale, who had heard some words.
“I said to my sister,” answered he, coolly, “that she ought to be executed to please the king.”
“And you, too, brother,” I cried.
“Yes, sister,” said he, with a theatrical tone, “I see the dire necessity, and submit to it unrepiningly. Let us yield to fate, or rather, let us so act as to make it favorable to us. The king requires some amusement, and let us find him a little wench. We must take heed not to present any fine lady: no, no; by all the devils—! Excuse me, maréchale, ‘tis a habit I have.”
“It is nature, you mean,” replied the maréchale: “the nightingale is born to sing, and you, comte Jean, were born to swear; is it not true?”
“Morbleu, madam, you are right.”
After this conversation the maréchale went out, and Comte Jean departed to arrange his plans for the king’s amusement.
However, the ennui of Louis XV was somewhat dissipated by the tidings of the various incidents which occurred at the grand entry of the dauphin and dauphiness into Paris. We learnt that the duc de Brissac, as governor of Paris, on receiving the dauphiness, said,
“Madam, you see about you two hundred thousand lovers.” He was right; the princess looked like an angel. I had taken a mortal aversion to her. Alas! circumstances have too fully avenged me: this unfortunate queen loses popularity daily; her perfidious friends have sacrificed her to their interests. I pity her.