"Mlle, de Clermont received from nature and from fortune all the gifts and all the goods which can be envied: royal birth, perfect beauty, a fine and delicate mind, a sensitive soul and that sweetness, that equality of character which are so precious and so rare, especially in persons of her rank. Simple, natural, chary of words, she always expressed herself delightfully and wisely; there was as much reason as charm in her conversation. The sound of her voice penetrated to the bottom of the heart, and an air of sentiment, spread over her whole person, gave interest to her least important actions; such was Mlle, de Clermont at the age of twenty." She appears at Chantilly and, immediately, the beauty of the place, which offers "all that a sensitive soul can love in the way of rural and solitary delights," the splendor of "the most ingenious and the most sumptuous feasts," the pleasure of her first homage and her first praise, intoxicate her youthful heart. Portrait of M. de Melun: "His character, his virtues, entitle him to personal consideration, independently of his fortune and of his birth. Although his figure was noble and his features mild and intellectual, his outer man showed no brilliancy; he was cold and distracted in society; though gifted with a superior mind, he was not at all what is called an amiable man, because he felt no desire to please, not from disdain or pride, but from an indifference which he had constantly preserved up to this period.... Finally the Duc de Melun, though endowed with the most noble politeness, had no gallantry; his very sensitiveness and extreme delicacy had preserved him till then from any engagement formed in caprice; aged scarcely thirty years, he was still only too capable of experiencing a grand passion, but, because of his character and his morals, he was safe from all the seductions of coquetry." One of the favorite diversions of Mlle, de Clermont was to read romances aloud before a few friends, and on these occasions, they never failed to praise her reading and her sensitiveness. "The women wept, the men listened with the appearance of admiration and sentiment; they talked quite low among themselves; it was easy to guess what they said; sometimes they were overheard (vanity has so fine an ear!), and the hearer gathered the words ravishing, enchanting..." We will soon see if this story is true. But let us emphasize in passing the improbability of this little picture. Is it credible that people wept so abundantly at Chantilly in 1724? A single man, always present at these lectures, preserves an obstinate silence: it is M. de Melun. The attitude of this motionless and silent auditor pricks the curiosity of Mlle, de Clermont. She questions. The Duke lets her understand that the reading of romances seems futile and frivolous to him. On the morrow she inflicts on her auditors the reading of a book of history. And the intrigue is begun.