f Madame de Charlus, and the
Archbishop's omelette; above all, at the fury and abuse of Madame de
Charlus, who thought she had been affronted, and who was a long time
before she would understand the cause, irritated at finding herself thus
treated before everybody. The head-dress was burnt, Madame la Princesse
de Conti gave her another, but before it was on her head everybody had
time to contemplate her charms, and she to grow in fury. Her, husband
died three months after her. M. de Levi expected to find treasures;
there had been such; but they had taken wing and flown away.

About this time appeared some verses under the title of Philippiques,
which were distributed with extraordinary promptitude and abundance. La
Grange, formerly page of Madame la Princesse de Conti, was the author,
and did not deny it. All that hell could vomit forth, true and false,
was expressed in the most beautiful verses, most poetic in style, and
with all the art and talent imaginable. M. le Duc d'Orleans knew it, and
wished to see the poem, but he could not succeed in getting it, for no
one dared to show it to him.

He spoke of it several times to me, and at last demanded with such
earnestness that I should bring it to him, that I could not refuse. I
brought it to him accordingly, but read it to him I declared I never
would. He took it, therefore, and read it in a low tone, standing in the
window of his little cabinet, where we were. He judged it in reading
much as it was, for he stopped from time to time to speak to me, and
without appearing much moved. But all on a sudden I saw him change
countenance, and turn towards me, tears in his eyes, and himself ready to
drop.

"Ah," said he, "this is too much, this horrible poem beats me
completely."

He was at the part where the scoundrel shows M. le Duc d'Orleans having
the design to poison the King, and quite ready to execute his crime.
It is the part where the author redoubles his energy, his poetry, his
invocations, his terrible and startling beauties, his invectives, his
hideous pictures, his touching portraits of the youth and innocence of
the King, and of the hopes he has, adjuring the nation to save so dear a
victim from the barbarity of a murderer; in a word, all that is most
delicate, most tender, stringent, and blackest, most pompous, and most
moving, is there.

I wished to profit by the dejected silence into which the reading of this
poem had thrown M. le Duc d'Orleans, t