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CHAPTER VIII

The sieur Ledoux—The lettre de cachet—The duc de la
Vrillière—Madame de Langeac—M. de Maupeou—Louis XV—The
comte Jean

On that very evening, the king having come to me, I said to him,

“Sire, I have made acquaintance with M. de Sartines.”

“What! has he been to make friends with you?”

“Something like it: but he has appeared to me less culpable than I thought. He had only yielded to the solicitation of my personal enemy.”

“You cannot have one at my court, madame; the lieutenant of police would have done well not to have named her to you.”

“Thanks to him, however, I shall now know whom I ought to mistrust. I know also who is the author of the two scurrilous paragraphs.”

“Some scamp, no doubt; some beggarly scoundrel.”