With all her revenues she leaves behind her debts amounting to 400,000 francs, for my son to pay. Those people about her robbed and pillaged the poor princess horribly; but that is always the way with a brood of favourites. Her marriage with that toad's head [Rion] is unhappily but too true. He is not, however, of a bad stock; he is allied to good families; the Duc de Lauzun is his uncle, and Biron his nephew; but, for all that, he was not worthy of the honours that came to him. He was only a captain in the king's regiment. Women ran after him. I thought him ugly and repulsive, and sickly looking besides. When the news of the Duchesse de Berry's death reached the army, the Prince de Conti went to find Rion and made him this pretty speech: "She is dead, your milch cow, and you need not talk any more about her." My son feels rather stung; but he does not wish to seem to know of it. SAINT-CLOUD, 1719. I promised to tell you about my journey to Chelles [to witness the installation of her grand-daughter as abbess of the convent of Chelles]. I started Thursday at seven o'clock, with the Duchesse de Brancas, Mme. de Châteauthiers, and Mme. de Rathsamhausen; we arrived at half-past ten. My grandson, the Duc de Chartres, had already arrived; my son came a few minutes later; then Mlle. de Valois. Mme. d'Orléans had herself bled expressly to be unable to come. She and the abbess are not very good friends; and besides, her extreme laziness would prevent her from getting up so early. We went to the church. The _prie-dieu_ of the abbess was placed in the nun's choir; it was violet velvet covered with gold _fleur-de-lis_; my _prie-dieu_ was against the balustrade; my son and his daughter were behind my chair, because the princes of the blood cannot kneel upon my carpet; that is a right reserved to the grandsons of France. The whole of the king's band was in the loft. Cardinal de Noailles said mass. The altar is a very fine one of black and white marble with four thick columns of black marble; there are four beautiful statues of sainted abbesses, one so like our own abbess you might think it was her portrait; it was, however, carved before my grand-daughter was born, for she is only twenty-one years old.