The Duc de Richelieu is bold and full of impertinence; he knows the kindness of my son and abuses it; if justice were done he would pay for his manoeuvres and his temerity with his head; he has triply deserved it. I am not cruel, but I could see him hanging from a gibbet without a tear. He is now walking about on the rampart of the Bastille, curled and bedecked, while the ladies are standing in the street below to see that beautiful image. Many tears will be shed in Paris, for every woman is in love with him; I don't know why, for he is a little toad in whom I can see nothing agreeable. He has no courage; he is impertinent, faithless, and indiscreet; he says harm of all his mistresses; and yet a princess of the blood-royal [Mlle. de Charolais, grand-daughter of M. le Prince de Condé] is so in love with him that when he became a widower she wanted to marry him. Her grandmother and brother formally opposed it, and with reason, for independently of the misalliance she would have been, all her life, most unhappy. He has had each of his mistresses painted in the various habits of the religious orders: Mlle. de Charolais as a Franciscan nun,--they say it is an excellent likeness; the Maréchale de Villars and the Maréchale d'Estrées in the Capucin habit. SAINT-CLOUD, 1719. I do not mingle in any way with what is going on in Rome. The pope and I have no relations with each other; therefore no one need address himself to me to get a dispensation. It is not true that I have changed my name; I cannot be called in France by any other title than that of Madame, for my husband, as brother of the king, bore the title of Monsieur, and I as his wife cannot bear any other than that of Madame. The daughters of the king are also called so, but, to distinguish them, the baptismal name is added; for instance, the three daughters of Henri II. were called: Madame Élisabeth, who became Queen of Spain; Madame Henriette, who became Queen of England; and Madame Christine, who was afterwards Duchesse de Savoie. The daughters of the king's brother are called Mademoiselle; the eldest bears that title with nothing added to it; the others add the name of their appanage; that is how it is there is a Mademoiselle de Chartres, Mademoiselle de Valois, Mademoiselle de Montpensier. It is the same with the grandsons of the king; they should be called Monsieur with the names of their appanages attached; it was always an abuse to say the Duc de Bourgogne, the Duc de Berry: they ought to have been called Monsieur de Bourgogne, Monsieur de Berry.