“‘As for Madame Dubarri herself, she soon turned from her lamentations concerning the behaviour of the young court towards her, to give herself up to all the merriment of the hour, and was soon excited by the good fellowship of d’Aiguillon, whose “discretion” had worn off with the first few glasses, and who had retrograded into the same state of hilarity as when he met me in the morning. I could not quote now one half of the _bon mots_, the puns, the _quolibets_, uttered during the course of that repast. It was a complete souvenir of the _régence_, and I could well understand that the influence which Madame Dubarri had possessed over the mind of the king had owed its origin to the nature of the _joyeux propos_ with which her conversation teemed, and which to Louis Quinze must have worn the mask of originality, as it was not probable that he could ever have heard the like before. I know not what hour of the night it could have been when we rose from table, of course much too late to think of returning home. “‘We adjourned to the boudoir of the comtesse—a delicious retreat which poor “France” had taken a pleasure in adorning with his own hands—and here the gaiety of the pair became even more uproarious. Madame Dubarri told us much of her past life, never sparing details which would have excited astonishment, even had she told them of another, but which, related of herself, became unaccountable. She showed us, among other curiosities which the boudoir contained, a little volume, richly bound in white silk, and which consisted of the manuscript journal of the king, during an absence of a few days that he was once compelled to make at Versailles, while she remained at Fontainebleau. By one of those curious chances, which I believe happen to all who _observe_, my eye fell upon a passage which immediately set at rest, in my mind, the long discussions and disputes which had been excited concerning the dismissal of M. de Choiseul from the ministry. It ran thus, and forget not, that it was in the handwriting of the king himself.