“‘She was attired in a robe of I know not what kind of rich stuff, which stood on end, and completely filled the immense arm-chair in which she was seated. This again was entirely covered with the richest lace, which, looped with ornaments in brilliants, representing _scorpions_, fell over either elbow of the chair, completely disguising its form, thus leaving the princess to represent to the beholder the richly-decorated joss of some Chinese temple, that scorns, in virtue of its divinity, the support which mortals need when seated. Altogether I scarcely ever remember to have seen a more ridiculous figure than that of the Princesse de Guéménée as she sat thus before me, the light of the fire dancing upon the diamonds with which she was covered from head to foot, now resting upon the thick rouge upon her cheeks, then flying off to some absurd and comical ornament with which she had thought fit to load the towering fabric of her powdered hair, and making her countenance take all kinds of fantastic expressions, as though she had been the sport of some merry demon.
“‘I endeavoured, as in duty bound, to divert the _ennui_ under which the princess was labouring, by trying to recount some of the latest news of the court. I had just returned from Versailles, where I had spent the day bidding adieu to my friends, and thought that it might be agreeable to her to hear the newest gossip. But I could gain no attention. She suffered me to talk on until I was weary, and I could see that she was not paying the slightest heed to my endeavours to amuse her. Suddenly, and in the midst of one of my most diverting anecdotes, she roused herself by a strong effort from the fit of abstraction into which she had been plunged, and turned sharply round towards me.
“‘You say you have just returned from Versailles?’
“‘As I have had the honour to tell you, princess.’
“‘Did you hear of my nephew being at court, to-day?’
“‘Indeed I did not hear the cardinal’s name pronounced during the whole day, although I did not leave until the latest hour of admission.’
“‘_Mon Dieu!_’ exclaimed the princess, in a tone of the deepest emotion, ‘then he has gone thither _en secret avec cette intrigante_!”
“‘These were her very words, and, just as she had pronounced them, the rattle of carriage-wheels was heard in the court-yard of the Hôtel Cardinal, and presently a great noise and bustle were heard upon the staircase, with loud laughter in a female voice, which seemed to give a sort of nervous spasm to the poor Princesse de Guéménée, for she opened and shut the huge fan which she carried, with a loud, impatient jerk, each time that the echo of that excited laughter reached the little _salon_ where we were seated. At length, the door opened, and the cardinal entered, leading by the hand, or rather, as was the fashion of the time, by the tips of the fingers, a lady whom he introduced to the princess as the Comtesse de Valois de la Motte. The name excited my curiosity, for I had heard her story but a short time before from the lips of my mother, and had been much moved by her misfortunes. I looked at the lady with the greatest interest, and with a predetermination to discover traces of her royal descent in her person and demeanour. I was moreover wounded by the coldness of the manner of the princess towards her. I thought her conduct uncivil and inhospitable in the extreme. She never rose from her chair on the introduction taking place, but had preserved the same idol-like rigidity of posture, neither did she even condescend to return a smile in acknowledgment of all the sweet things with which the Comtesse de la Motte ceased not to overwhelm her from the first moment of her entrance—assuring her that she had been longing for this meeting for some time past—that there was no one in the world whose acquaintance she had so much desired to make as that of the Princesse de Guéménée—in short, all the common-place flatteries with which little people are in the habit of soothing and allaying the adverse tempers of the great.
