with his wife, dared to say, in her salon that my presence at Racine's
tragedy was, at the least, very useless, and the public having come there
to see a debutante, certainly did not expect me.

The phrase was repeated to me, word for word by my sister De Thianges,
who did not conceal her anger, and wished to avenge me, if I did not
avenge myself. The Marquise then informed me of another thing, which she
had left me in ignorance of all along, from kind motives chiefly, and to
prevent scandal.

"You remember, my sister," said the Marquise to me, "a sort of jest which
escaped you when Pere de la Chaise made the King communicate, in spite of
all the noise of his new love affair and the follies of Mademoiselle de
Fontanges? You nicknamed that benevolent Jesuit 'the Chaise of
Convenience.' Your epigram made all Paris laugh except the hypocrites
and the Jesuits. Those worthy men resolved to have full satisfaction for
your insult by stirring up the whole of Paris against you. The
Archbishop entered readily into their plot, for he thought you
supplanted; and he granted them the forty Hours' Prayers, to obtain from
God your expulsion from Court. Harlay, who is imprudent only in his
debauches, preserved every external precaution, because of the King,
whose temper he knows; he told the Jesuits that they must not expect
either his pastoral letter or his mandate, but he allowed them secret
commentaries, the familiar explanations of the confessional; he charged
them to let the other monks and priests into the secret, and the field of
battle being decided, the skirmishes began. With the aid and assistance
of King David, that trivial breastplate of every devotional insult, the
preachers announced to their congregations that they must fast and
mortify themselves for the cure of King David, who had fallen sick. The
orators favoured with some wit embellished their invectives; the ignorant