les illusions; que je m'étais creusée tous les abîmes dans lesquels
j'étais tombée.

At other times she could see around her nothing but a mass of mutual
hatreds, into which she was plunged herself no less than her neighbours:

Je ramenai la Maréchale de Mirepoix chez elle; j'y descendis, je
causai une heure avec elle; je n'en fus pas mécontente. Elle hait
la petite Idole, elle hait la Maréchale de Luxembourg; enfin, sa
haine pour tous les gens qui me déplaisent me fit lui pardonner
l'indifférence et peut-être la haine qu'elle a pour moi. Convenez
que voilà une jolie société, un charmant commerce.

Once or twice for several months together she thought that she had found
in the Duchesse de Choiseul a true friend and a perfect companion. But
there was one fatal flaw even in Madame de Choiseul: she _was_
perfect!--'Elle est parfaite; et c'est un plus grand défaut qu'on ne
pense et qu'on ne saurait imaginer.' At last one day the inevitable
happened--she went to see Madame de Choiseul, and she was bored. 'Je
rentrai chez moi à une heure, pénétrée, persuadée qu'on ne peut être
content de personne.'

One person, however, there was who pleased her; and it was the final
irony of her fate that this very fact should have been the last drop
that caused the cup of her unhappiness to overflow. Horace Walpole had
come upon her at a psychological moment. Her quarrel with Mademoiselle
de Lespinasse and the Encyclopaedists had just occurred; she was within
a few years of seventy; and it must have seemed to her that, after such
a break, at such an age, there was little left for her to do but to die
quietly. Then the gay, talented, fascinating Englishman appeared, and