IX.--THE MAID OF HONOUR
X.--FARMING THE TAXES
XI.--THE CAT AND THE KING
XII.--AT FONTAINEBLEAU




I. THE CLOCKMAKER OF POISSY.

Foreseeing that some who do not love me will be swift to allege
that in the preparation of these memoirs I have set down only
such things as redound to my credit, and have suppressed the many
experiences not so propitious which fall to the lot of the most
sagacious while in power, I take this opportunity of refuting
that calumny. For the truth stands so far the other way that my
respect for the King's person has led me to omit many things
creditable to me; and some, it may be, that place me in a higher
light than any I have set down. And not only that: but I
propose in this very place to narrate the curious details of an
adventure wherein I showed to less advantage than usual; and on
which I should, were I moved by the petty feelings imputed to me
by malice, be absolutely silent.

One day, about a fortnight after the quarrel between the King and
the Duchess of Beaufort, which I have described, and which arose,
it will be remembered, out of my refusal to pay the christening
expenses of her second son on the scale of a child of France, I
was sitting in my lodgings at St. Germains when Maignan announced
that M. de Perrot desired to see me. Knowing Perrot to be one of