ad been invested. When I was
a barefooted boy, trotting about the Marais, I was as happy as a bird
in spring.

I think Mademoiselle Lecouvreur's death had a lasting effect on Count
Saxe. I ever believed that he grieved more for her than did Voltaire,
who wrote verses on her. Voltaire, at that time, was hanging to the
petticoats of that lean, brown Madame du Chatelet, who spent her time
working out Newton's Principia and henpecking Voltaire. No woman ever
henpecked my master. But I must admit Voltaire was a sorcerer, and
could spur a dead horse into life. He confused me very much about that
time by asking me if the writing I was engaged upon was a life of
Count Saxe, and when I said not, the rogue remarked that he supposed I
was like Amyot, who said that he did not write the life of his various
masters because he was too much attached to them. Now, what answer is
a man to make to such things?

In spite of all the distractions of Paris, Count Saxe by no means lost
interest in Francezka, and kept in constant communication with her.
Madame Riano had urged Francezka to join her in Paris, but Francezka
declined to leave Brabant for two reasons why she must not stir from
home; that Gaston, if living, might find her there; and if he were
dead, she preferred the seclusion of her own home to the gaiety of
Paris.

In the spring of 1737 Madame Riano was seized with the notion of going
to England again. I judge she had had enough of Scotland, that land of
milk and honey, as she represented it to be. This time she went
straight to London, where she took a great house, proclaimed herself a
Jacobite, put white cockades on every one of her servants, down to the
very scullions in the kitchen, and defied Sir Robert Walpole's
government to arrest her. To her cruel disappointment, the ministry
took not the least notice of her. In vain she gave balls on Prince
Charles Stuart's birthday, whom she called James III, made everybody
curtsy to his portrait, which was placed in the main lobby of her
house, and never failed to revile and ridicule the Elector of
Hanover, as she called King George, and all his family. The straw that
broke the camel's back was when her coach locked wheels with that of
the Duke of Newcastle, then secretary of state under Sir Robert
Walpole, and known as the greatest fool in England. It was on the way
to a levee at St. James's Palace. Madame Riano upbraided the duke for
his treachery to his lawful sovereign, King Jam