young Princess: "Madame, you will relate, if you please, this episode to
the Court of London, and you will tell the King, from me, that nothing is
so difficult to preserve now as our crowns; guards and locks are no more
of use."

Then, addressing me, his Majesty said, playfully:

"You should have entrusted it to me sooner; I should have saved it. It
is said that I understand that well."

My amour-propre, my actual honour, forbade me to put a veil over this
domestic indignity. I assembled all my household, without excepting my
intendant himself. I was aggrieved at the affront which I had met with
at the King's, and I read grief and consternation on all faces. After
some minutes' silence, my intendant proposed the immediate intervention
of authority, and made me understand with ease that only the casket-maker
could be the culprit.

This man's house was visited; he had left Paris nearly two years before.
Further information told us that, before disposing of his property, he
had imprudently indulged in a certain ostentation of fortune, and had
embarked for the new settlements of Pondicherry.

M. Colbert, who is still living, charged our governor to discover the
culprit for him; and he was sent back to us with his hands and feet
bound.

Put to the question, he denied at first, then confessed his crime. One
of my chamber--maids, to whom he had made feigned love, introduced him
into my house while I was away, and by the aid of this imprudent woman he