The Maréchale de Villars runs after the Comte de Toulouse; my son is also in her good graces, and he is not discreet. The Maréchal de Villars came to see me one day, and as he assumes to know much about medals he asked to see mine. Baudelot,[12] a very honourable and learned man, who is in charge of them, was obliged to show them. Baudelot is not the most discreet of men, and moreover he is little informed as to what goes on at Court. So he made a dissertation on one of my medals to prove, against the opinion of other savants, that a head with horns which appears upon it is that of Pan, and not that of Jupiter Ammon. To prove his erudition the worthy soul said to M. de Villars, "Ah! monseigneur, here is one of the finest medals Madame has; it is the triumph of Cornificius; he has all sorts of horns. He was a great general like yourself, monseigneur; he has the horns of Juno and of Faunus. Cornificius, as you know, monseigneur, was a very able general." I interrupted him. "Go on," I said; "if you stop to talk about each medal, you will not have time to show them all." But, full of his subject, he replied: "Oh, Madame, this one is worth all the rest. Cornificius is really one of the rarest medals on earth. Consider it, Madame, look at it; here is a crowned Juno crowning that great general." In spite of all I did, I could not prevent Baudelot from harping on horns to the marshal. "Monseigneur knows all about such things," he said, "and I want him to judge whether I am not right in saying that those horns are the horns of Pan, and not of Jupiter Ammon." Everybody in the room had all they could do not to laugh. If it had been done on purpose it could not have been more complete. When the marshal had gone, I laughed out; but I had the greatest difficulty in convincing Baudelot that he had blundered. PARIS, 1717.