r and theirs that nothing
was ever repeated.

The Countess D---- also visited me. She was a frank and lively
woman, and much liked by Madame de Pompadour. The Baschi family
paid me great attention. M. de Marigny had received some little
services from me, in the course of the frequent quarrels between
him and his sister, and he had a great friendship for me. The
King was in the constant habit of seeing me; and an accident,
which I shall have occasion to relate, rendered him very familiar
with me. He talked without any constraint when I was in the room.
During Madame de Pompadour's illness I scarcely ever left her
chamber, and passed the night there. Sometimes, though rarely,
I accompanied her in her carriage with Doctor Quesnay, to whom
she scarcely spoke a word, though he was a man of great talents.
When I was alone with her, she talked of many affairs which nearly
concerned her, and she once said to me, "The King and I have such
implicit confidence in you, that we look upon you as a cat, or
a dog, and go on talking as if you were not there." There was a
little nook, adjoining her chamber, which has since been altered,
where she knew I usually sat when I was alone, and where I heard
everything that was said in the room, unless it was spoken in a
low voice. But when the King wanted to speak to her in private,
or in the presence of any of his Ministers, he went with her into
a closet, by the side of the chamber, whither she also retired
when she had secret business with the Ministers, or with other
important persons; as, for instance, the Lieutenant of Police,
the Postmaster-General, etc. All these circumstances brought to
my knowledge a great many things which probity will neither allow
me to tell or to record. I generally wrote without order of time,
so that a fact may be related before others which preceded it.
Madame de Pompadour had a great friendship for three Ministers;
the first was M. de Machault, to whom she was indebted for the
regulation of her income, and the payment of her debts. She gave
him the seals, and he retained the first place in her regard till
the attempt to assassinate the King. Many people said that his
conduct on that occasion was not attributable to bad intentions;
that he thought it his duty to obey the King without making himself
in any way a party to the affair, and that his cold manners gave
him the appearance of an indifference which he did not feel.
Madame de Pompadour regarded him in