The regency of her son brought the Court again around Madame; and her more frequent residence in Paris allowed her less retreat than she was able to make at Versailles. Sometimes, in the morning, half a dozen duchesses would take up her time and cut short her correspondence. She detested their conversations of mere politeness, in which they talked without having anything to say. "I would rather be alone than have to give myself the trouble of finding something to say to each of them; for the French think it very bad if you do not talk to them, and go away discontented; one must therefore take pains to say something to each; and so I am content and tranquil when they leave me to myself." She made exception with less annoyance when it was a question of Germans of high rank, who all wished to be presented to her, and whom she greeted very well. At times there were as many as twenty-nine German princes, counts, and gentlemen in her apartment. One evening she made a scene before all present to the Duchesse de Berry, her grand-daughter, who had appeared before her in a loose gown, or rather in fancy dress, intending to go to the Tuileries in such array. "No, madame," she said, cutting short all explanation, "nothing excuses you; you might at least dress yourself properly the few times you do go to see the king; I, who am your grandmother, dress myself every day. Say honestly it is laziness that prevents you from doing so; which belongs neither to your age nor to your station. A princess should be dressed as a princess, and a soubrette as a soubrette." While saying all this and not listening to the reply of the Duchesse de Berry, Madame went on writing her letter in German, her pen never ceasing to scratch the paper. The table on which she wrote was a secretary somewhat raised, so that in her pausing moments she could, without rising from her seat, look down upon the game of the players beside her. "That was her occupation if she ceased to write, but when any one came in and approached her she would leave everything to ask them, 'What news?' and as the giving of news made every one welcome, people invented it when there was none to tell. No sooner had she heard it than, without examination, she turned to the letter already begun and wrote down the tale she had just been told." It is thus that, side by side with things that she sees well and says well, and which are in truth the expression of her own thought, her letters contain much else that is simply malignant gossip and trash.