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The duchesse de Grammont, who had no further inclination to laugh, told the whole to her brother. He, who loved her excessively, too much so perhaps, reprimanded her, nevertheless, and pointed out to her the disadvantage in an open struggle with me. Madame de Brionne was enjoined to secrecy, but that did not prevent her from confiding the affair to the dowager duchesse d'Aiguillon.
When I say they were there, those who knew the Court will admit that I have said more than enough. I had the pleasure of seeing them, and of quietly laughing with them. At all these balls the King made people dance who had long since passed the age for doing so. As for the Comte de Brionne and the Chevalier de Sully, their dancing was so perfect that there was no age for them.
The whole countenance of the duchesse turned pale, except her lips, which became blue. She would have said something foolish, but madame de Brionne, more cool because touched less nearly, placed her hand over her companion's mouth. I in my turn walked away with Henriette, laughing till tears came into my eyes at this pleasing victory.
"She is," answered one of my neighbours, "Madame de Brionne, more remarkable by her virtue even than by her beauty. Not only is there no scandalous story told about her, but she has never given any opportunity to scandal-mongers of inventing any adventure of which she was the heroine." "Perhaps her adventures are not known." "Ah, monsieur! at the court everything is known."
But the bêtes all flocked to the salon bourgeois, and consequently a more brilliant gathering never assembled in a salon; here sat, enjoying the liberal hospitalities, Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Mairan, Marmontel, Helvétius, Diderot, D'Alembert, Thomas, D'Holbach, Hume, Morellet, Mlle. de Lespinasse, the Marquis de Duras, Comtesses d'Egmont and de Brionne.
The nucleus of the society was composed of the handsome Countess de Brionne and her daughter the Princess Lorraine, the Duke de Choiseul, the Cardinal de Rohan, and M. de Rulhières, the author of the "Disputes"; but the most agreeable without question of all the guests was the Duke de Lauzun; no one could possibly have been cleverer or more entertaining; we were all fascinated by him.
Harlette, who was left very much out in the cold, but to one of his most trusty officers, Gilbert Crespon, count of Brionne; and the strong castle of Vaudreuil, the first foundation of which dated back, it was said, to Queen Fredegonde, was assigned for the usual residence of the young duke.
My liaison with mesdames d'Egmont, de Brionne, and de Grammont naturally placed me in the rank opposed to you: so much for what has passed. But I have seen you: I have studied you at a distance, as well as close, and I have recognised, without difficulty, the injustice of your enemies. I have been enraged with myself for having been deceived regarding you: I wish to repair my wrongs.
If our chronology is to be trusted, he had still in this interval to complete his conquest of his own duchy by securing the surrender of Brionne; and two other events, both characteristic, one of them memorable, fill up the same time.
Out of sixteen hundred inhabitants in Brionne, "twelve hundred and sixty are reduced to the small portion of wheat they receive at the market, and which, unfortunately, for too long a time, has been reduced from eight to three ounces of wheat for each person, every eight days."
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