court to be a good and
able consul. In the same manner was I universally acknowledged to be the
wittiest fool in the world. Every word I said raised laughter, and
was held to be a jest, especially by the ladies, who sometimes laughed
before I had discovered my sentiment, and often repeated that as a jest
which I did not even intend as one.

"I was as severe on the ladies as on the men, and with the same
impunity; but this at last cost me dear: for once having joked on the
beauty of a lady whose name was Adelaide, a favorite of the Simple's,
she pretended to smile and be pleased at my wit with the rest of the
company; but in reality she highly resented it, and endeavored to
undermine me with the king. In which she so greatly succeeded (for what
cannot a favorite woman do with one who deserves the surname of Simple?)
that the king grew every day more reserved to me, and when I attempted
any freedom gave me such marks of his displeasure, that the courtiers
who have all hawks' eyes at a slight from the sovereign, soon discerned
it: and indeed, had I been blind enough not to have discovered that I
had lost ground in the Simple's favor by his own change in his carriage
towards me, I must have found it, nay even felt it, in the behavior of
the courtiers: for, as my company was two days before solicited with the
utmost eagerness, it was now rejected with as much scorn. I was now the
jest of the ushers and pages; and an officer of the guards, on whom I
was a little jocose, gave me a box on the ear, bidding me make free with
my equals. This very fellow had been my butt for many years, without
daring to lift his hand against me.

"But though I visibly perceived the alteration in the Simple, I was
utterly unable to make any guess at the occasion. I had not the least
suspicion of Adelaide; for, besides her being a very good-humored woman,
I had often made severe jests on her reputation, which I had all the
reason imaginable to believe had given her no offense. But I soon
perceived that a woman will bear the most bitter censures on her morals
easier than the smallest reflection on her beauty; for she now declared
publicly, that I ought to be dismissed from court, as the stupidest of
fools, and one in whom there was no diversion; and that she wondered how
any person could have so little taste as to imagine I had any wit.
This speech was echoed through the drawing-room, and agreed to by all
present. Every one now put on an unusual gra