As soon as a royal child, which they call here un Enfant de France, is born, and has been swaddled, they put on him a grand cordon; but they do not create him a knight of the order until he has communicated; the ceremony is then performed in the ordinary manner.
The ladies of chancellors here have the privilege of the tabouret when they come to the toilette; but in the afternoon they are obliged to stand. This practice began in the days of Marie de Medicis, when a chancellor's wife happened to be in great favour. As she had a lame foot and could not stand up, the Queen, who would have her come to visit her every morning, allowed her to sit down. From this time the custom of these ladies sitting in the morning has been continued.
In the reign of Henri IV. the King's illegitimate children took precedence of the Princes of the House of Lorraine. On the day after the King's death, the Duc de Verneuil was about to go before the Duc de Guise, when the latter, taking him by the arm, said, "That might have been yesterday, but to-day matters are altered."
Two young Duchesses, not being able to see their lovers, invented the following stratagem to accomplish their wishes. These two sisters had been educated in a convent some leagues distant from Paris. A nun of their acquaintance happening to die there, they pretended to be much afflicted at it, and requested permission to perform the last duties to her, and to be present at her funeral. They were believed to be sincere, and the permission they asked was readily granted them. In the funeral procession it was perceived that, besides the two ladies, there were two other persons whom no one knew. Upon being asked who they were, they replied they were poor priests in need of protection; and that, having learnt two Duchesses were to be present at the funeral, they had come to the convent for the purpose of imploring their good offices. When they were presented to them, the young ladies said they would interrogate them after the service in their chambers. The young priests waited upon them at the time appointed, and stayed there until the evening. The Abbess, who began to think their audience was too long, sent to beg the priests would retire. One of them seemed very melancholy, but the other laughed as if he would burst his sides. This was the Duc de Richelieu; the other was the Chevalier de Guemene, the younger son of the Duke of that name. The gentlemen themselves divulged the adventure.
The King's illegitimate children, fearing that they should be treated in the same way as the Princes of the blood, have for some months past been engaged in drawing a strong party of the nobility to their side, and have presented a very unjust petition against the Dukes and Peers. My son has refused to receive this petition, and has interdicted them from holding assemblies, the object of which he knows would tend to revolt. They have, nevertheless, continued them at the instigations of the Duc du Maine and his wife, and have even carried their insolence so far as to address a memorial to my son and another to the Parliament, in which they assert that it is within the province of the nobility alone to decide between the Princes of the blood and the legitimated Princes. Thirty of them have signed this memorial, of whom my son has had six arrested; three of them have been sent to the Bastille, and the other three to Vincennes; they are MM. de Chatillon, de Rieux, de Beaufremont, de Polignac, de Clermont, and d'O. The last was the Governor of the Comte de Toulouse, and remains with him. Clermont's wife is one of the Duchesse de Berri's ladies. She is not the most discreet person in the world, and has been long in the habit of saying to any one who would listen to her, "Whatever may come of it, my husband and I are willing to risk our lives for the Comte de Toulouse." It is therefore evident that all this proceeds from the bastards. But I must expose still further the ingratitude of these people. Chatillon is a poor gentleman, whose father held a small employment under M. Gaston, one of those offices which confer the privilege of the entree to the antechambers, and the holders of which do not sit in the carriage with their masters. The two descendants, as they call themselves, of the house of Chatillon, insist that this Chatillon, who married an attorney's daughter, is descended from the illegitimate branches of that family. His son was a subaltern in the Body Guard. In the summer time, when the young officers went to bathe, they used to take young Chatillon with them to guard their clothes, and for this office they gave him a crown for his supper. Monsieur having taken this poor person into his service, gave him a cordon bleu, and furnished him with money to commence a suit which he subsequently gained against the House of Chatillon, and they were compelled to recognize him. He then made him a Captain in the Guards; gave him a considerable pension, which my son continued, and permitted him also to have apartments in the Palais Royal. In these very apartments did this ungrateful man hold those secret meetings, the end of which was proposed to be my son's ruin. Rieux's grandfather had neglected to uphold the honour to which he was entitled, of being called the King's cousin. My son restored him to this honour, gave his brother a place in the gendarmerie, and rendered him many other services. Chatillon tried particularly to excite the nobility against my son; and this is the recompense for all his kindness. My son's wife is gay and content, in the hope that all will go well with her brothers.
That old Maintenon has continued pretty tranquil until the termination of the process relating to the legitimation of the bastards. No one has heard her utter a single expression on the subject. This makes me believe that she has some project in her head, but I cannot tell what it is.
A monk, who was journeying a few days ago to Luzarche, met upon the road a stranger, who fell into conversation with him. He was an agreeable companion, and related various adventures very pleasantly. Having learned from the monk that he was charged with the rents of the convent, to which some estates in the neighbourhood of Luzarche belonged, the stranger told him that he belonged to that place, whither he was returning after a long journey; and then observing to the monk that the road they were pursuing was roundabout, he pointed out to him a nearer one through the forest. When they had reached the thickest part of the wood, the stranger alighted, and, seizing the bridle of the monk's horse, demanded his money. The monk replied that he thought he was travelling with an honest man, and that he was astonished at so singular a demand. The stranger replied that he had no time for trifling, and that the monk must either give up his money or his life. The monk replied, "I never carry money about me; but if you will let me alight and go to my servant, who carries my money, I will bring you 1,000 francs."
The robber suffered the monk to alight, who went to his servant, and, taking from him the 1,000 francs which were in a purse, he at the same time furnished himself with a loaded pistol which he concealed in his sleeve. When he returned to the thief, he threw down the purse, and, as the robber stooped to pick it up, the monk fired and shot him dead; then, remounting his horse, he hastened to apply to the police, and related his adventure. A patrole was sent back with him to the wood, and, upon searching the robber, there were found in his pockets six whistles of different sizes; they blew the largest of the number, upon which ten other armed robbers soon afterwards appeared; they defended themselves, but eventually two of them were killed and the others taken.
The Chevalier Schaub, who was employed in State affairs by Stanhope, the English Minister, brought with him a secretary, to whom the Prince of Wales had entrusted sixty guineas, to be paid to a M. d'Isten, who had made a purchase of some lace to that amount for the Princess of Wales; the brother of M. d'Isten, then living in London, had also given the same secretary 200 guineas, to be delivered to his brother at Paris. When the secretary arrived he enquired at the Ambassador's where M. d'Isten lived, and, having procured his address, he went to the house and asked for the German gentleman. A person appeared, who said, "I am he." The secretary suspecting nothing, gave him the Prince of Wales' letter and the sixty guineas. The fictitious d'Isten, perceiving that the secretary had a gold watch, and a purse containing fifty other guineas, detained him to supper; but no sooner had the secretary drank some wine than he was seized with an invincible desire to go to sleep. "My good friend," said his host, "your journey has fatigued you; you had better undress and lie down on my bed for a short time." The secretary, who could not keep his eyes open, consented; and no sooner had he lain down than he was asleep. Some time after, his servant came to look for him, and awoke him; the bottles were still standing before the bed, but the poor secretary's pockets were emptied, and the sharper who had personated M. d'Isten had disappeared with their valuable contents.
The Princesse Maubuisson was astonishingly pleasant and amiable. I was always delighted to visit her, and never felt myself tired in her society. I soon found myself in much greater favour than any other of her nieces, because I could converse with her about almost everybody she had known in the whole course of her life, which the others could not. She used frequently to talk German with me, which she knew very well; and she told me all her adventures. I asked her how she could accustom herself to the monastic life. She laughed and said, "I never speak to the nuns but to give orders." She had a deaf nun with her in her own chamber, that she might not feel any desire to speak. She told me that she had always been fond of a country life, and that she still could fancy herself a country girl. "But," I asked her, "how do you like getting up and going to church in the middle of the night?" She replied that she did as the painters do, who increase the splendour of their light by the introduction of deep shadows. She had in general the faculty of giving to all things a turn which deprived them of their absurdity.