ng a means
of reconciling the regard they owe to the Choiseuls and the terror which
they inspire, with the desire they have to seek your protection and the
friendship of the king. The cabal only flies on one wing, and I cannot
divine its situation at the commencement of the next winter. Do not
disquiet yourself any more with what it can do: keep yourself quiet;
continue to please the 'master,' and you will triumph over the multitude
as easily as you have conquered the resistance of mesdames."

Such was the language of the comtesse de Flaracourt: it agreed, as you
will perceive, with that of madame de Mirepoix, and I ought the more
to believe it, as it was the fruit of their experience and profound
knowledge of court manners. Their example proved to me, as well as their
words, that all those who approached the king could not bear for a long
time the position in which he placed those whom he did not look upon
with pleasure. However, Louis XV evinced more plainly from day to day
the ascendancy I had over his mind. He assisted publicly at my toilette,
he walked out with me, left me as little as possible, and sought by
every attention to console me for the impertinences with which my
enemies bespattered me. The following anecdote will prove to you how
little consideration he had for those persons who dared to insult me
openly.

One day at Marly, I entered the drawing-room; there was a vacant seat
near the princesse de Guemenee, I went to it, and scarcely was seated
when my neighbor got up, saying, "What horror!" and betook herself to
the further end of the room. I was much confused: the offence was too
public for me to restrain my resentment, and even when I wished to do so
the thing was scarcely possible. The comte Jean, who had witnessed
it, and my sisters-in-law, who learnt it from him, were enraged. I was
compelled to complain to the king, who instantly sent the princesse de
Guemenee an order to quit Marly forthwith, and betake herself to the
princesse de Marsan, _gouvernante_ of the children of the royal family
of France, of whose post she had the reversion.

Never did a just chastisement produce a greater effect. The outcry
against me was louder than ever, it seemed as tho' the whole nobility
of France was immolated at "one fell swoop." To have heard the universal
clamor, it would have been thought that the princess had been sent to
the most obscure prison in the kingdom. This proof of the king's regard
for me did m