The new friends whom he made at Montmorency were among the greatest people in the kingdom. The Duke of Luxembourg (1702-64) was a marshal of France, and as intimate a friend of the king as the king was capable of having. The Maréchale de Luxembourg (1707-87) had been one of the most beautiful, and continued to be one of the most brilliant leaders of the last aristocratic generation that was destined to sport on the slopes of the volcano. The former seems to have been a loyal and homely soul; the latter, restless, imperious, penetrating, unamiable. Their dealings with Rousseau were marked by perfect sincerity and straightforward friendship. They gave him a convenient apartment in a small summer lodge in the park, to which he retreated when he cared for a change from his narrow cottage. He was a constant guest at their table, where he met the highest personages in France. The marshal did not disdain to pay him visits, or to walk with him, or to discuss his private affairs. Unable as ever to shine in conversation, yet eager to show his great friends that they had to do with no common mortal, Rousseau bethought him of reading the New Heloïsa aloud to them. At ten in the morning he used to wait upon the maréchale, and there by her bedside he read the story of the love, the sin, the repentance of Julie, the distraction of Saint Preux, the wisdom of Wolmar, and the sage friendship of Lord Edward, in tones which enchanted her both with his book and its author for all the rest of the day, as all the women in France were so soon to be enchanted.[1] This, as he expected, amply reconciled her to the uncouthness and clumsiness of his conversation, which was at least as maladroit and as spiritless in the presence of a duchess as it was in presences less imposing.