e that one day the king his
master supping at Trianon with a small party, the talk
happened to turn first upon the chase, and next on gunpowder.
Some one said that the best powder was made of equal parts of
saltpetre, of sulphur, and of charcoal. The Duke de la
Valliere, better informed, maintained that to make good
gunpowder you required one part of sulphur and one of charcoal
to five parts of saltpetre.

"It is curious," said the Duke de Nivernois, "that we should
amuse ourselves every day in killing partridges at Versailles,
and sometimes in killing men or getting ourselves killed on
the frontier, without knowing exactly how the killing is
done."

"Alas," said Madame de Pompadour, "we are all reduced to that
about everything in the world: I don't know how they compound
the rouge that I put on my cheeks, and I should be vastly
puzzled if they were to ask me how they make my silk
stockings."

"'Tis a pity, then," said the Duke de la Valliere, "that his
Majesty should have confiscated our Encyclopaedias, which cost
us a hundred pistoles apiece: we should soon find there an
answer to all our difficulties."

The king justified the confiscation: he had been warned that
one-and-twenty folios, that were to be found on the
dressing-tables of all the ladies, were the most dangerous
thing in all the world for the kingdom of France; and he meant
to find out for himself whether this were true or not, before
letting people read the book. When supper was over, he sent
three lackeys for the book, and they returned each with a good
deal of difficulty carrying seven volumes.

It was then seen from the article _Powder_ that the Duke de la
Valliere was right; and then Madame de Pompadour learnt the
difference between the old rouge of Spain, with which the
ladies of Madrid coloured their faces, and the rouge of the
ladies of Paris. She knew that the Greek and Roman ladies
were painted with the purple that came from the _murex_, and
that therefore our scarlet is the purple of the ancients; that
there was more saffron in the rouge of Spain, and more
cochineal in that of France.

She saw how they made her stockings by loom; and the machine
transported her with amazement.

Everyone threw himself on the volumes like the daughters