"When the king has heard mass he returns to me; next comes the Duchesse de Bourgogne with a number of ladies, and there they stay while I eat my dinner. You would think that here at least was a time I could have to myself; but you shall see how it is. I fret lest the Duchesse de Bourgogne should do something unsuitable; I try to make her say a word to this one; I look to see if she treats that one properly, and whether she is behaving well to her husband. I must entertain the company, and do it in a way to unite them all. If some one commits an indiscretion I feel it; I am worried by the manner in which people take what is said to them; in short, it is a tumult of mind that nothing equals. Around me stand a circle of ladies, so that I cannot even ask for something to drink. I turn to them sometimes and say: 'This is a great honour for me, but I would like to have a footman.' On that, each of them wants to serve me and hastens to bring me what I want; but that is only another sort of embarrassment and annoyance to me. At last they go off to dine themselves, for my dinner is at twelve o'clock with Mme. d'Heudicourt and Mme. de Dangeau, who are invalids. Here I am at last alone with those two; every one else has gone. If there were a moment in the day when I might what is called amuse myself, this is it, either for talk or a game at backgammon. But usually Monseigneur takes this time to come and see me, because on some days he does not dine, on other days he has dined early, and so comes after the others. He is the hardest man in the world to talk with, for he never says a word. But I must try to entertain him because I am in my own apartment; if it were elsewhere I could lean back in a chair and say nothing if I chose. The ladies who are with me can do that if they like, but I must, as they say, labour it out, and manage to find something to say; and this is not very enlivening.