"
Only imagine what a rage this put the marquise de Beauvoir in: she
stormed, wept, had a nervous attack. The comte de la Marche
contemplated her with a desperate tranquillity; but this scene
continuing beyond the limits of tolerable patience, he was so tired
of it that he left her. This was not what the marquise wished; and
she hastened to write a submissive letter to him, in which, to justify
herself, she confessed to the prince, that in acting against me she
had only yielded to the instigations of the cabal, and particularly
alluded to mesdames de Grammont and de Guemenee.
The comte de la Marche showed me this letter, which I retained
in spite of his resistance and all the efforts he made to obtain
possession of it again. My intention was to show it to the king;
and I did not fail to give it to him at the next visit he paid me:
he read it, and shrugging up his shoulders, as was his usual custom,
he said to me,
"They are devils incarnate, and the worst of the kind. They try
to injure you in every way, but they shall not succeed. I receive
also anonymous letters against you, they are tossed into the
post-box in large packets with feigned names, in the hope that
they will reach me. Such slanders ought not to annoy you: in the
days of madame de Pompadour, the same thing was done. The same
schemes were tried to ruin madame de Chateauroux.
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