The mot had true feminine malice, but the lips that spoke it were so handsome, that had even poor Favart himself, the poet-pastrycook who composed operas and comedies while he made méringues and fanfreluches, and dreamed of libretti while he whisked the cream for a supper, been within hearing, they would have taken the smart from the sting; and, as it was, the hit only caused echoes of softly-tuned laughter, for the slightest word of those lips it was the fashion through Paris just then to bow to, applaud, and re-echo. Before her Psyche, shrouded in cobweb lace, powdered by Martini, gleaming with pearls and emeralds, scented with most delicate amber, making her morning toilette, and receiving her morning levee according to the fashion of the day, sat the brilliant satirist of poor Favart. The _ruelle_ was crowded; three marshals, De Richelieu, Lowendal, and Maurice de Saxe; a prince, De Soubise; a poet, Claude Dorat; an abbé, Voisenon; a centenarian, Saint-Aulaire; peers uncounted, De Bièvre, De Caylus, De Villars, D'Etissac, Duras, D'Argenson--a crowd of others--surrounded and superintended her toilette, in a glittering troop of courtiers and gentlemen. Dames d'atours (for she had her maids of honor as well as Marie Leczinska) handed her her flacons of perfume, or her numberless notes, on gold salvers, chased by Réveil; the ermine beneath her feet, humbly sent by the Russian ambassador--far superior to what the Czarina sent to Madame de Mailly--had cost two thousand louis; her bedroom outshone in luxury any at Versailles, Choisy, or La Muette, with its Venetian glass, its medallions of Fragonard, its plaques of Sèvres, its landscapes of Watteau, framed in the carved and gilded wainscoting, its Chinese lamps, swinging by garlands of roses, its laughing Cupids, buried under flowers, painted in fresco above the alcove, its hangings of velvet, of silk, of lace; and its cabinets, its screens, its bonbonnières, its jewel-boxes, were costly as those of the Marquises de Pompadour or De Prie. Who was she?--a Princess of the Blood, a Duchess of France, a mistress of the King? Lords of the chamber obeyed her wishes, ministers signed lettres de cachet at her instance; "_ces messieurs_," la Queue de la Régence, had their rendezvous at her suppers; she had a country villa that eclipsed Trianon; she had fêtes that outshone the fêtes at Versailles; she had a "_droit de chasse_" in one of the royal districts; she had the first place on the easels of Coypel, Lancret, Pater, Vanloo, La Tour; the first place in the butterfly odes of Crébillon le Gai, Claude Dorat; Voisenon. Who was she?--the Queen of France? No; much more--the Queen of Paris!