But there was a snake in the grass. One of the pleasantest features of the remarkably sociable life carried on by the brilliant company assembled under the roof of Stanislas, while at Lunéville and at Commercy, were those merry nocturnal gatherings held as soon as the king had retired to rest--which he did punctually at ten o'clock, without ever troubling the company, in spite of his jealousy, with an unexpected reappearance. Then began Madame de Boufflers' reign in good earnest; and to the good cheer of a choice little supper, to which often an exciting game of _comète_ or of _cavagnole_ added a fresh delight, was summoned, by means of a lighted candle placed in a particular window, a new guest, whom Stanislas' jealousy would not otherwise tolerate in the palace. This guest was the young and handsome Saint Lambert, a captain in the Duke of Lorraine's Guards, the cynosure of the ladies' world, of whom it was said that no fair heart to which he seriously laid siege could resist him. His muse had not yet taken the frigid turn which eventually produced those dull and chilling _Seasons_, a poem in which no one will now detect any merit, though Voltaire praised it up to the skies, and French contemporaries declared that the poet had surpassed Thomson. But he dabbled very neatly in little ditties, _vers d'occasion_, and the like, some of them rather light and pretty, though not of the most perfect style. Voltaire professes to regard Saint Lambert as a _terrible élève_, of whose poetry he owns himself "jealous." "Il prend un pen ma tournure et l'embellit--j'éspère que la postérité m'en remerciera." Posterity has done nothing of the kind. In matters of courtship Saint Lambert resembled the "_papillon libertin_" sketched by himself in one of his prettiest _pièces fugitives_:-- Plus pressant qu'amoureux, plus galant que fidèle, De la rose coquette allez baiser le sein. D'aimer et de changer faites-vous une loi: A ces douces erreurs consacrez votre vie.