Madame du Chiron, I ought to communicate this to Madame de
Pompadour, for the ease of my conscience; but that I would abstain from
making any reflection upon it. "Your friend, Madame du Chiron," said
she, "is, I perceive, affiliated to the Jesuits, and what she says does
not originate with herself. She is commissioned by some reverend father,
and I will know by whom." Spies were, accordingly, set to watch her
movements, and they discovered that one Father de Saci, and, still more
particularly, one Father Frey, guided this lady's conduct. "What a
pity," said Madame to me, "that the Abbe Chauvelin cannot know this." He
was the most formidable enemy of the reverend fathers. Madame du Chiron
always looked upon me as a Jansenist, because I would not espouse the
interests of the good fathers with as much warmth as she did.

Madame is completely absorbed in the Abbe de Bernis, whom she thinks
capable of anything; she talks of him incessantly. Apropos, of this
Abbe, I must relate an anecdote, which almost makes one believe in
conjurors. A year, or fifteen months, before her disgrace, Madame de
Pompadour, being at Fontainebleau, sat down to write at a desk, over
which hung a portrait of the King. While she was, shutting the desk,
after she had finished writing, the picture fell, and struck her
violently on the head.. The persons who saw the accident were alarmed,
and sent for Dr. Quesnay. He asked the circumstances of the case, and
ordered bleeding and anodynes. Just, as she had been bled, Madame de
Brancas entered, and saw us all in confusion and agitation, and Madame
lying on her chaise-longue. She asked what was the matter, and was told.
After having expressed her regret, and having consoled her, she said, "I
ask it as a favour of Madame, and of the King (who had just come in),
that they will instantly send a courier to the Abbe de Bernis, and that
the Marquise will have the goodness to write a letter, merely requesting
him to inform her what his fortune-tellers told him, and to withhold
nothing from the fear of making her uneasy." The thing was, done as she
desired, and she then told us that La Bontemps had predicted, from the
dregs in the coffee-cup, in which she read everything, that the head of
her best friend was in danger, but that no fatal consequences would
ensue.

The next day, the Abbe wrote word that Madame Bontemps also said to him,
"You came into the world almost black," and that this was the fact.