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Her memory seemed to be wandering angrily among her first experiences of the lady they were discussing. "Well," said Sir Wilfrid, at last, "so you engaged her as lectrice, and thought yourself very lucky?" "Oh, don't suppose that I was quite an idiot. I made some inquiries I bored myself to death with civilities to the stupid family she was staying with, and presently I made her stay with me.
He did not talk to me... but morning and evening, after flicking the snuff from his jabot with two fingers, he would with the same two fingers always icy cold pat me on the cheek and give me some sort of dark-coloured sweetmeats, also smelling of ambre, which I never ate. At twelve years old I became his reader -sa petite lectrice.
Great was our satisfaction if we could prevail upon Mademoiselle Descuillès herself to take the book in hand and become the "lectrice" of the morning; greater still when we could persuade her, while intent upon her own stitching, to sing to us, which she sometimes did, old-fashioned French songs and ballads, of which I learnt from her and still remember some that I have never since heard, that must have long ago died out of the musical world and left no echo but in my memory.
Petersburg, attired as a girl, Douglas's niece, and acting as the lectrice of the Empress, whom he converted to the French alliance! This is the traditional theory, but is almost certainly erroneous. Sometimes, in his vast MSS., d'Éon declares that he went to Russia disguised in 1755.
It is not easy to ascertain precisely what the tattle of the Princess really amounted to, but d'Éon represents it so as to corroborate his tale about his residence at Elizabeth's Court, as lectrice, in 1755. The evidence is of no value, being a biassed third-hand report of the Russian lady's gossip.
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