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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.
To this uninviting neighborhood came the coursing-party at the time appointed. After a sufficiently successful day's sport the American guests accepted an invitation to pass the night with the mayor of Mont Plésis, the other gentlemen returning to Fontainebleau. Monsieur le Maire loitered by the way until the last of the hunters had disappeared, and then struck off across country toward Courance.
Anne of Austria could not resist laughing, and was laughing still when the king entered. He came very affectionately to inquire after the even now uncertain health of the queen-mother, and to announce to her that the preparations for the journey to Fontainebleau were complete. Seeing her laugh, his uneasiness on her account diminished, and he addressed her in a vivacious tone himself.
Armand de Montriveau left school with his way to make, entered the artillery, and had only reached a major's rank at the time of the Fontainebleau disaster. In his section of the service the chances of advancement were not many.
He much preferred the life of a private individual, and could not be happier than when allowed without interruption to indulge his simple and tranquil tastes. On his arrival at the chateau of Fontainebleau, he found there M. Remusat, the first chamberlain; M. de Caqueray, officer of the hunt; M. de Lugay, prefect of the palace; and a household already installed.
We are to have further conversations on the subject. I am afraid the voyage to Fontainebleau will interrupt them. This is nearly the whole salary for the time, and would leave nothing to eat. I therefore cannot accompany the court thither, but I will endeavor to go there occasionally from Paris.
She's white-hot youth and innocence, and she'd take no more harm than clean steel from a muck-heap. I knew I was badly in the wrong, but my pride was all raw. 'I'm not going to agree till I've talked to Mary. 'But Miss Mary has consented, he said gently. 'She made the plan. Next day, in clear blue weather that might have been May, I drove Mary down to Fontainebleau.
The day after my arrival in Fontainebleau I went alone to the court, and I saw Louis XV., the handsome king, go to the chapel with the royal family and all the ladies of the court, who surprised me by their ugliness as much as the ladies of the court of Turin had astonished me by their beauty. Yet in the midst of so many ugly ones I found out a regular beauty. I enquired who she was.
Throughout the autumn, notwithstanding the gravity of the affairs then pending, the Court at Fontainebleau was one ceaseless scene of dissipation.
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.
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