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Updated: May 22, 2025
It was requisite, in fact, that an impenetrable veil should be cast over the frailties of the king; and that the public should know nothing of what occurred at the Parc-aux-Cerfs. The general term eleves was applied to the young persons who were kept there. They were of all ages from nine to eighteen years. Until fifteen they were kept in total ignorance of the city which they inhabited.
Chance, however, discovered to me a secret correspondence of the King, with a man in a very obscure station. This man, who had a place in the Farmers General, of from two to three hundred a year, was related to one of the young ladies of the Parc-aux-cerfs, by whom he was recommended to the King. He was also connected in some way with M. de Broglie, in whom the King placed great confidence.
Nevertheless, whilst so many were contending for the honour of that which I condemned, I was compelled to stifle my feelings and resign myself to the bad as well as the good afforded by my present situation; at a future period I shall have occasion again to revert to the Parc-aux-Cerfs during the period of my reign, but for the present I wish to change the subject by relating to you what befell me at a fete given me by madame de Valentinois, while she feigned to give it in the honour of madame de Provence.
The first time I saw an assembly, public or other, open to one of those thirty thousand women who are permitted to sell themselves in Paris, I heard of the saturnalia of all times, of every imaginable orgy, from Babylon to Rome, from the temple of Priapus to the Parc-aux-Cerfs, and I have always seen written on the sill of that door the word, "Pleasure."
Lebel, who likes me better than he would a new mistress in my place, either by chance or design had brought a charming little sultana to the Parc-aux-cerfs, who has cooled the King a little towards the haughty Vashti, by giving him occupation, has received a hundred thousand francs, some jewels, and an estate. The one who is now talked of will be as haughty as high birth can make her.
He was also embarrassed by the services Madame de Pompadour had rendered him on this occasion. Besides the little mistresses of the Parc-aux-cerfs, the King had sometimes intrigues with ladies of the Court, or from Paris, who wrote to him. There was a Madame de L , who, though married to a young and amiable man, with two hundred thousand francs a year, wished absolutely to become his mistress.
When they married, they received some jewels, and four thousand louis. The Parc-aux-cerfs was sometimes vacant for five or six months. I was surprised, some time after, at seeing the Duchesse de Luynes, Lady of Honour to the Queen, come privately to see Madame de Pompadour. She afterwards came openly.
Now, from nowhere, arose and spread the curious rumor that King Louis, somewhat the worse for his diversions in the Parc-aux-Cerfs, daily restored his vigor by bathing in the blood of young children; and parents of the absentees began to manifest a double dissatisfaction, for the deduction was obvious. There were riots. Antoine, and forced to make a detour rather than enter his own capital.
"Not at all; he is able to go to the Trianon, or the Parc-aux-cerfs, if he likes. M. de la Martiniere has bled him, and found him to be in no danger. The assassin has been arrested, and the wretched man will be burnt, drawn with red-hot pincers, and quartered."
There were two little rooms by the side of the chapel, whither the King retired from his apartment, without being seen by anybody but a sentinel, who had his orders, and who did not know who passed through those rooms. The King sometimes went to the Parc-aux-cerfs, or received those young ladies in the apartments I have mentioned.
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