game for satire.

Among the most interesting bibliophiles of the eighteenth century is
Madame Du Barry. In 1771, this notorious beauty could scarcely read
or write. She had rooms, however, in the Chateau de Versailles,
thanks to the kindness of a monarch who admired those native
qualities which education may polish, but which it can never confer.
At Versailles, Madame Du Barry heard of the literary genius of
Madame de Pompadour. The Pompadour was a person of taste. Her
large library of some four thousand works of the lightest sort of
light literature was bound by Biziaux. Mr. Toovey possesses the
Brantome of this dame galante. Madame herself had published
etchings by her own fair hands; and to hear of these things excited
the emulation of Madame Du Barry. She might not be CLEVER, but she
could have a library like another, if libraries were in fashion.
One day Madame Du Barry astonished the Court by announcing that her
collection of books would presently arrive at Versailles. Meantime
she took counsel with a bookseller, who bought up examples of all
the cheap "remainders," as they are called in the trade, that he
could lay his hands upon. The whole assortment, about one thousand
volumes in all, was hastily bound in rose morocco, elegantly gilt,
and stamped with the arms of the noble house of Du Barry. The bill
which Madame Du Barry owed her enterprising agent is still in
existence. The thousand volumes cost about three francs each; the
binding (extremely cheap) came to nearly as much. The amusing thing
is that the bookseller, in the catalogue which he sent with the
improvised library, marked the books which Madame Du Barry possessed
BEFORE her large order was so punctually executed. There were two
"Memoires de Du Barry," an old newspaper, two or three plays, and
"L'Historie Amoureuse de Pierre le Long." Louis XV. observed with