in these words: 'Gentlemen Body
Guards, do your duty.' In this case their duty was to turn the offender
out at the door. This comptroller, who had paid sixty or eighty thousand
francs for his appointment, was a man of a good family, and had had the
honour of serving his Majesty five and twenty years in one of his
regiments; thus ignominiously driven out of the hall, he placed himself in
the King's way in the great hall of the Guards, and, bowing to his
Majesty, requested him to vindicate the honour of an old soldier who had
wished to end his days in his Prince's civil employment, now that age had
obliged him to relinquish his military service. The King stopped, heard
his story, and then ordered him to follow him. His Majesty attended the
representation in a sort of amphitheatre, in which his armchair was
placed; behind him was a row of stools for the captain of the Guards, the
first gentleman of the chamber, and other great officers. The
brigade-major was entitled to one of these places; the King stopped
opposite the seat which ought to have been occupied by that officer and
said to the comptroller, 'Take, monsieur, for this evening, the place near
my person of him who has offended you, and let the expression of my
displeasure at this unjust affront satisfy you instead of any other
reparation:

"During the latter years of the reign of Louis XIV. he never went out but
in a chair carried by porters, and he showed a great regard for a man
named D'Aigremont, one of those porters who always went in front and
opened the door of the chair. The slightest preference shown by
sovereigns, even to the meanest of their servants, never fails to excite
observation.

[People of the very first rank did not disdain to descend to the level of
D'Aigremont. "Lauzun," said the Duchesse d'Orleans in her "Memoirs,"
"sometimes affects stupidity in order to show people their own with
impunity, for he is very malicious. In order to make Marechal de Tease
feel the impropriety of his familiarity with people of the common sort, he
called out, in the drawing-room at Marly, 'Marechal, give me a pinch of
snuff; some of your best, such as you take in the morning with Monsieur
d'Aigremont, the chairman.'"--NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]

The King had done something for this man's numerous family, and frequently
talked to him. An abbe belonging to the chapel thought proper to request
D'Aigremont to present a memorial to the King, in which he requested h