Adieu, monsieur le baron; you have forbidden
my addressing you as your rank and my respect would
have me, I will therefore content myself with assuring
you of the ardent affection of the
"COMTESSE Du Barry."
The signature I adopted was a bold piece of falsehood, but it
was too late to recede; besides, I was addressing myself in my
letter, not to the king, but to the baron de Gonesse; for Louis,
by I know not what unaccountable caprice, seemed to wish to
preserve his incognito. I have since learned that Francis I
assumed the same name, altho' upon a very different occasion.
Replying to a letter from Charles V, in which that emperor had
given himself a long string of high sounding titles, he contented
himself with simply signing his letter, "<"Fran?ois, baron de
Gonesse.>" Louis XV was very fond of borrowed appellations.
Unlike the vanity so common to mankind, of seeking to set off
their pretensions by assumed titles, it is the pleasure of royalty
to descend to a lower grade in society when concealment becomes
desirable, either from policy or pleasure; and Louis sought in the
familiarity in which a plain baron might safely indulge, a relief
from the ennui attendant upon the rigid etiquette of a regal
state. I had omitted in my letter to the baron, to remind him
that we were to meet that very evening, but that did not prevent
my repairing to Versailles punctually at the appointed hour.
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