new cause of annoyance had arisen to trouble her. Rion, who saw himself
so successful as the lover of Madame la Duchesse de Berry, wished to
improve his position by becoming her husband. He was encouraged in this
desire by his uncle, M. de Lauzun, who had also advised him to treat her
with the rigour, harshness--nay, brutality, which I have already
described. The maxim of M. de Lauzun was, that the Bourbons must be ill-
used and treated with a high hand in order to maintain empire over them.
Madame de Mouchy was as strongly in favour of this marriage as Rion. She
knew she was sure of her lover, and that when he became the husband of
Madame la Duchesse de Berry, all the doors which shut intimacy would be
thrown down. A secret marriage accordingly took place.

This marriage gave rise to violent quarrels, and much weeping. In order
to deliver herself from these annoyances, and at the same time steer
clear of Easter, the Duchess resolved to go away to Meudon on Easter
Monday. It was in vain that the danger was represented to her, of the
air, of the movement of the coach, and of the change of place at the end
of a fortnight. Nothing could make her endure Paris any longer. She set
out, therefore, followed by Rion and the majority of her ladies and her
household.

M. le Duc d'Orleans informed me then of the fixed design of Madame la
Duchesse de Berry to declare the secret marriage she had just made with
Rion. Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans was at Montmartre for a few days, and
we were walking in the little garden of her apartments. The marriage did
not surprise me much, knowing the strength of her passion, her fear of
the devil, and the scandal which had just happened. But I was
astonished, to the last degree, at this furious desire to declare the
marriage, in a person so superbly proud.