As to madame de Blessac, she continued to carry on the war in grand style. Her husband dying she married again a foolish count, three parts ruined, and who speedily dissipated the other quarter of his own fortune and the whole of his wife’s. Madame Ramosky then attacked the rich men of the day one after another. One alone stood out against her; it was M. de la Garde, who had been one of my admirers. Madame Ramoski wrote to him; he did not answer. At length she determined on visiting him, and wrote him a note, to say that she should call upon him about six o’clock in the evening. What did M. de la Garde? Why he gave a ball on that very evening; and, when madame Ramoski reached his hotel, she found it illuminated. As she had come quite unprepared she was compelled to return as she came, very discontentedly. But to leave madame de Blessac and M. D------n, and to talk of my own matters. We had at this period a very great alarm at the château, caused by the crime of a man, who preferred rather to assassinate his wife than to allow her to dishonor him. It is worthy of narration. A pretty shopkeeper of Paris, named Gaubert, who lived in the rue de la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, had recently married a woman much younger than himself. From the Petit Pont to the rue Mouffetard, madame Gaubert was talked of for her lovely face and beautiful figure; she was the Venus of the quarter. Everybody paid court to her, but she listened to none of her own rank, for her vanity suggested that she deserved suitors of a loftier rank. Her husband was very jealous. Unfortunately M. Gaubert had for cousin one of the valets of the king: this man, who knew the taste of his master, thought how he could best turn his pretty cousin to account. He spoke to her of the generosity of Louis XV, of the grandeur of Versailles, and of the part which her beauty entitled her to play there. In fact, he so managed to turn the head of this young woman, that she begged him to obtain for her a place in the king’s favor. Consequently Girard (that was his name) went to madame de Laugeac, and told her the affair as it was. She pleased with an opportunity of injuring me, went to Paris, and betook herself _incog._ to the shop of madame Gaubert. She found her charming, and spoke of her to the duc de la Vrillière, and both agreed to show her portrait to his majesty. But how to procure this portrait? Her husband was her very shadow, and never left her. _Le petit saint_, who was never at a loss, issued a _lettre de cachet_ against him, and the unfortunate man was shut up in Fort l’Evéque. It was not until the portrait was finished that he was set at liberty.