he would send it me. The King wrote to the same purpose,
and despatched Manique, the steward of his household, with
instructions to use every persuasion with me to undertake the
journey. The length of time I had been absent in Gascony, and
the unkind usage I received on account of Fosseuse, contributed
to induce me to listen to the proposal made me.

The King and the Queen both wrote to me. I received three letters,
in quick succession; and, that I might have no pretence for staying,
I had the sum of fifteen hundred crowns paid me to defray the
expenses of my journey. The Queen my mother wrote that she would
give me the meeting in Saintonge, and that, if the King my husband
would accompany me so far, she would treat with him there, and
give him every satisfaction with respect to the King. But the
King and she were desirous to have him at their Court, as he
had been before with my brother; and the Marechal de Matignon
had pressed the matter with the King, that he might have no one
to interfere with him in Gascony. I had had too long experience
of what was to be expected at their Court to hope much from all
the fine promises that were made to me. I had resolved, however,
to avail myself of the opportunity of an absence of a few months,
thinking it might prove the means of setting matters to rights.
Besides which, I thought that, as I should take Fosseuse with
me, it was possible that the King's passion for her might cool
when she was no longer in his sight, or he might attach himself
to some other that was less inclined to do me mischief.

It was with some difficulty that the King my husband would consent
to a removal, so unwilling was he to leave his Fosseuse. He paid
more attention to me, in hopes that I should refuse to set out
on this journey to France; but, as I had given my word in my
letters to the King and the Queen my mother that I would go,
and as I had even received money for the purpose, I could not
do otherwise.

And herein my ill-fortune prevailed over the reluctance I had
to leave the King my husband, after the instances of renewed
love and regard which he had begun to show me.

THE MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XV. AND OF MADAME DE POMPADOUR

ON MADAME DE POMPADOUR

"Madame de Pompadour was not merely a grisette, as her enemies
attempted to say, and as Voltaire repeated in one of his malicious
days. She was the prettiest woman in Paris, spirituelle, elegant,
adorned with a thousand gifts and a thousand