"We have a change of the scene here, which will gratify you as much as it does all the world. I was at Versailles last Saturday with the Villarses. You know the queen's toilet, the mass, and the dinner? Well, there is no longer any need of suffocating ourselves in a crowd to get a glimpse of their majesties at table. At three, the king, the queen, monsieur, madame, mademoiselle, and every thing else which is royal, together with De Montespan and train, and all the courtiers, and all the ladies, all, in short, which constitutes the court of France, is assembled in that beautiful apartment of the king's which you remember. All is furnished divinely; all is magnificent. Such a thing as heat is unknown; you pass from one place to another without the slightest pressure. A game at _reversis_ gives the company a form and a settlement. The king and Madame de Montespan keep a bank together; different tables are kept by monsieur, the queen, Dangeau and party, &c.; every where you see heaps of _Louis d'ors_; they have no counters. I saw Dangeau play, and thought what fools we were beside him. He dreams of nothing but what concerns the game; he wins where others lose; he neglects nothing, and profits by every thing; never has his attention diverted; in short, his science bids defiance to chance. Two hundred thousand francs in ten days--a pretty memorandum to put down in his pocket-book! He was kind enough to say that I was partner with him, so that I got an excellent seat. I made my obeisance to the king, as you told me; and he returned it as if I had been young and handsome. The queen talked to me about my illness; the duke said a thousand pretty things, without minding a word he uttered. Marechal de Lorges attacked me in the name of the Chevalier de Grignan; in short, all the company. You know what it is to get a word from every body you meet. Madame de Montespan talked to me of Bourbon, and asked me how I liked Vichi, and whether the place did me good. She said that Bourbon, instead of curing the pain in one of her knees, did mischief to both. Her size is reduced one half, and yet her complexion, her eyes, and her lips, are as fine as ever. She was dressed all in French point, her hair in a thousand ringlets, the two side ones hanging low on her cheeks, black ribbons on her head, pearls,--the same that belonged to Madame de l'Hopital,--the loveliest diamond ear-rings, three or four bodkins, nothing else on the head; in short, a triumphant beauty, worthy the admiration of all foreign ambassadors. She was accused of preventing the whole French nation from seeing the king; she has restored him, you see, to their eyes; and you cannot conceive the joy it has given all the world, and the splendor it has thrown upon the court. This charming confusion, without confusion, of all which is the most select, continues from three to six. If couriers arrive, the king retires