wished from the ministers at Vienna.

He could not forgive the French ladies for affecting English fashions.
He used often to joke about it, and particularly in the conversation
which he addressed to me, expecting that I would take it up and tease the
Princesses. To amuse him, I sometimes said whatever came into my head,
without the least ceremony, and often made him laugh heartily.

Reversi was the only game at which the King played, and which he liked.

When he did not like openly to reprove any person, he would address
himself to me; for he knew that I never restrained myself in
conversation, and that amused him infinitely. At table, he was almost
obliged to talk to me, for the others scarcely said a word. In the
cabinet, after supper, there were none but the Duchess--[Anne of
Bavaria, wife of Henri-Jules, Duc de Bourbon, son of the great Conde; she
bore the title of Madame la Princesse after his death.]--and I who spoke
to him. I do not know whether the Dauphine used to converse with the
King in the cabinets, for while she was alive I was never permitted to
enter them, thanks to Madame de Maintenon's interference; the Dauphine
objected to it; the King would willingly have had it so; but he dare not
assert his will for fear of displeasing the Dauphine and the old woman.
I was not therefore suffered to enter until after the death of the
Dauphine, and then only because the King wished to have some one who
would talk to him in the evening, to dissipate his melancholy thoughts,
in which I did my best. He was dissatisfied with his daughters on both
sides, who, instead of trying to console him in his grief, thought only
of amusing themselves, and the good King might often have remained alone
the whole evening if I had not visited his cabinet. He was very sensible
of this, and said to Maintenon, "Madame is the only one who does not