[123] Mémoires et Correspondance (edit. 1808), i. 25.
[124] Marie Rinteau, the great-grandmother of George Sand.
[125] Desnoiresterres, Épicuriens et Lettrés, p. 215.
[126] " ...Je vous dires en outre que je suis amoureu depuis trois ans d'une petite Gelan(?) qui me joue des mauves tour et qui ma penses faire tourner la servelle; je vous en ay écrit quelque chosse lanée passé, elle ait possede du démon de l'amour conjugal.... J'ay etes tente deux ou trois foy de la noier."—Letter of Maurice de Saxe to his sister, the Princess von Holstein, March 10, 1747. We hesitate to produce the remainder of this letter, of which, as Desnoiresterres very justly remarks, the orthography is the least enormity, even in the original; but the curious reader will find it in Les Lettres du Maréchal de Saxe à la Princesse de Holstein (p. 20), published by the Société des Bibliophiles Français in 1831. A copy, presented by T. J. Dibdin to the Hon. Thomas Grenville, is in the possession of the British Museum.
[127] This is really very amusing. These pretty verses had been addressed, many years before, by Voltaire, to Adrienne Lecouvreur; and the Marshal not only coolly appropriates them, but adds insult to injury by calling them "rhymed prose"! One can imagine the indignation of the poet had this letter, by any chance, fallen into his hands. This was not the first time, however, that Voltaire's verses had been purloined by an unscrupulous lover. The charming lines, in English, which he addressed to Lady Hervey, beginning—
| "Hervey, would you know the passion |
| You have kindled in my breast," |
were subsequently transcribed by the lover of a Mrs. Harley, the wife of a London merchant, and formed part of the evidence on which her husband based his claim for a divorce.
[128] Nouveaux Lundis (1869), xi. 106-108.
[129] Manuscrit trouvé à la Bastille (1789), p. 5.
[130] We might add the testimony of Marmontel, who, from his very intimate relations with two prominent members of Maurice's seraglio, Mlles. Navarre and de Verrières, was without doubt well informed in regard to the Marshal's love-affairs. "He (Maurice de Saxe) always kept an opéra comique in his camp. Two performers belonging to this theatre, called Chantilly and Beaumenard, were his favourite mistresses; and he declared that their rivalry and caprices plagued him more than the Queen of Hungary's Hussars. I have read these words in one of his letters. For them it was that he neglected Mlle. Navarre."