was often closeted with him for hours together, and would
not suffer any body to speak disparagingly of him. Voltaire constantly
turned him into ridicule; and, in one of his letters to the King of
Prussia, mentions him as "un comte pour rire;" and states that he
pretended to have dined with the holy fathers at the Council of Trent!

In the _Memoirs of Madame du Hausset_, chamber-woman to Madame du
Pompadour, there are some amusing anecdotes of this personage. Very soon
after his arrival in Paris, he had the _entree_ of her dressing-room; a
favour only granted to the most powerful lords at the court of her royal
lover. Madame was fond of conversing with him; and, in her presence, he
thought fit to lower his pretensions very considerably; but he often
allowed her to believe that he had lived two or three hundred years at
least. "One day," says Madame du Hausset, "madame said to him, in my
presence, 'What was the personal appearance of Francis I.? He was a king I
should have liked.' 'He was, indeed, very captivating,' replied St.
Germain; and he proceeded to describe his face and person, as that of a
man whom he had accurately observed. 'It is a pity he was too ardent. I
could have given him some good advice, which would have saved him from all
his misfortunes: but he would not have followed it; for it seems as if a
fatality attended princes, forcing them to shut their ears to the wisest
counsel.' 'Was his court very brilliant?' inquired Madame du Pompadour.
'Very,' replied the count; 'but those of his grandsons surpassed it. In
the time of Mary Stuart and Margaret of Valois, it was a land of
enchantment--a temple sacred to pleasures of every kind.' Madame said,
laughing, 'You seem to have seen all this.' 'I have an excellent memory,'
said he, 'and have read the history of France with great care. I sometimes
amuse myself, not by making, but by letting, it be believed that I lived
in old times.'

"'But you do not tell us your age,' said Madame du Pompadour to him on
another occasion; 'and yet you pretend you are very old. The Countess de
Gergy, who was, I believe, ambassadress at Vienna some fifty years ago,
says she saw you there, exactly the same as you now appear.'

"'It is true, madame,' replied St. Germain; 'I knew Madame de Gergy many
years ago.'

"'But, according to her account, you must be more than a hundred years
old?'

"'That is not impossible,' said he, laughing; 'but it is much more
possible that the good