A soldier he therefore became, and subsequently a courtier. His
valour in war and luck in gambling won him the admiration of the
camp; whilst his ardour in love and genius for intrigue gained
him the esteem of the court, but finally lost him the favour of
his king. For attaching himself to one of the maids of honour,
Mademoiselle La Motte Houdancourt, whom his most Christian
Majesty Louis XIV. had already honoured with his regard,
Grammont was banished from the French court.

Accordingly, in the second year of the merry monarch's reign he
presented himself at Whitehall, and was received by Charles with
a graciousness that served to obliterate the memory of his late
misfortune. Nor were the courtiers less warm in their greetings
than his majesty. The men hailed him as an agreeable companion;
the ladies intimated he need not wholly abandon those tender
diversions for which he had shown such natural talent and
received such high reputation at the court of Louis XIV. He
therefore promptly attached himself to the king, whose parties he
invariably attended, and whose pleasures he continually devised;
made friends with the most distinguished nobles, whom he charmed
by the grace of his manner and extravagance of his
entertainments; and took early opportunities of proving to the
satisfaction of many of the fairer sex that his character as a
gallant had by no means been exaggerated by report.

Amongst those to whom he paid especial attention were Mrs.
Middleton, a woman of fashion, and Miss Kirk, a maid of honour,
to whom Hamilton, in his memoirs of Grammont, gives the
fictitious name of Warmestre. The former was at this time in her