Volume III Part 15 (2/2)
”It is an electru to do with it”
”I beg your pardon”
She then said that she thought my desire for privacy praiseworthy, but she was sure I should not be ill pleased with her small circle, if I would but enter it
”I will introduce you to allthem one at a time, and you will then be able to enjoy the company of them all”
I accepted her proposition
In consequence of this arrangement I dined the next day with M Grin and his niece, but neither of them took my fancy The day after, I dined with an Irishman named Macartney, a physician of the old school, who bored uest was a ainst Voltaire, whoainst the ”Esprit des Lois,” a favourite work of mine, which the cowled idiot refused to attribute to Montesquieu, ht as well have said that a Capuchin created the heavens and the earth
On the day following Madany, a hty, vain, foppish, and consequently ridiculous, known as ”The Last of the Beaus” However, as he had h, speaking with all the courtesy of the school, and having a fund of anecdote relating to the Court of that despotic and luxurious e, his clothes were cut in the style which obtained in the days of Madane, he professed himself still the devoted lover of his ht in the cohtful, and preferred his society to all others; however, in spite of these seductions, he reny had an aave whatever he said an appearance of truth, although in his capacity of courtier truth was probably quite unknown to hi flowers, such as tuberoses, jonquils, and Spanish jas was plastered doith amber-scented pomade, his teeth were made of ivory, and his eyebrows dyed and perfumed, and his whole person exhaled an odour to which Madame d'Urfe did not object, but which I could scarcely bear If it had not been for this drawback I should probably have cultivated his society
He was a professed Epicurean, and carried out the syste tranquillity He said that he would undertake to receive twenty-four bloith the stick everyon the condition that he should not die within the twenty-four hours, and that the older he grew thein love with life with a vengeance
Another day I dined with M Charon, as a counsellor, and in charge of a suit between Madahter Madame du Chatelet, whom she disliked heartily The old counsellor had been the favoured lover of the ht hies to support the cause of his old sweetheart In those days French ht to take the side of their friends, or of persons in whom they had an interest, sometimes for friendshi+p's sake, and soht, in fact, that they were justified in selling justice
M Charon boredwe had no two tastes in coed the next day when I was a counsellor, a nephew of Mada wife He was the author of the ”Rereat reputation, and had been read eagerly by the whole town He tolddone by the crown, good and bad His reasons for this theory were those given by all minorities, and I do not think I need trouble my readers with them
The i, who came with the famous adventurer, known by the name of the Count de St Ger, talked fro of the meal to the end, and I followed his example in one respect as I did not eat, but listened to hireatest attention It may safely be said that as a conversationalist he was unequalled
St Gerave hi a He was scholar, linguist, , and a perfect ladies' ave them paints and cos again (which he modestly confessed was beyond him) but that their beauty would be preserved by means of a hich, he said, cost hiave away freely
He had contrived to gain the favour of Mada, for whom he had made a laboratory, in which the monarch--a martyr to boredom--tried to find a little pleasure or distraction, at all events, by iven him a suite of rooms at Chambord, and a hundred thousand francs for the construction of a laboratory, and according to St Ger would have a materially beneficial influence on the quality of French fabrics
This extraordinaryof impostors and quacks, would say in an easy, assured manner that he was three hundred years old, that he knew the secret of the Universal Medicine, that he possessed ahi, out of ten or twelve se one of the finest water without any loss of weight
All this, he said, was a s, his bare-faced lies, and his ht hie of what he was and in spite ofmore to say of this character further on
When Madame d'Urfe had introduced me to all her friends, I told her that I would dine with her whenever she wished, but that with the exception of her relations and St Germain, whose wild talk amused me, I should prefer her to invite no company St Germain often dined with the best society in the capital, but he never ate anything, saying that he was kept alive by ot used to his eccentricities, but not to his wonderful floords which made him the soul of whatever company he was in
By this time I had fathomed all the depths of Madame d'Urfe's character
She fir use of another name for purposes of my own; and five or six weeks later she was confir me if I had diciphered the num Opus
”Yes,” said I, ”I have deciphered it, and consequently read it, and I now beg to return it you with my word of honour that I have notin it that I did not know before”
”Without the key you mean, but of course you could never find out that”