She sensed the truth in my observation and became only more distressed. The good doctor predicted all her needs, but she accepted his charity with all the more reservation, as she felt herself less disposed to the sort of gratitude that he hoped to receive from her. Besides, the doctor[7] was not wealthy then, and he was not particularly in a position to become wealthy. From time to time she took her manuscript from its folder and said to me sadly, `Well! There is no way to make anything of this. It will have to remain there.´ I gave her some singular advice: send the work as is, without toning it down or altering it, to Madame de Pompadour herself, with a postscript explaining the delivery. This idea pleased her. She wrote a charming letter on all counts, but most importantly with a tone of sincerity to which it would be impossible to say no. Two or three months passed with no word and she had deemed the attempt fruitless, until a Saint-Louis cross came to her home with a letter from the marquise. The work was given the praise it merited, she was thanked for her sacrifice, a market was acknowledged, no offense was taken, and the author was invited to come to Versailles, where she would find a gracious woman disposed to give the help that depended on her. As he was leaving Mademoiselle de La Chaux´s home the envoy left a roll of fifty louis smoothly on her mantelpiece. The doctor and I urged her to take advantage of Madame de Pompadour´s good will, but we were working with a girl whose modesty and shyness matched her merit. How to present oneself there in rags? The doctor raised this concern immediately. After clothing there were other excuses, and then still more. The voyage to Versailles was deferred from day to day until it was almost inappropriate to go through with it. It had already been some time since we had spoken to her about it when the same emissary returned with a second letter filled with the kindest reproaches and another bonus offered with the same gentleness as the first. This generous act of Madame de Pompadour has never been discovered. I spoke of it to M. Collin, her confidant and distributor of her secret favors. He had not heard of it, and I like to think that it is not the only one that her tomb contains. It was thus that Mademoiselle de La Chaux twice missed the opportunity to pull herself from poverty. She later moved to the outskirts of the city, and I entirely lost track of her. From what I have learned of the remainder of her life, she had become nothing but a fabric of grief, infirmity and misery. The doors of her family were obstinately closed to her. In vain she solicited the intercession of the saintly folk that had persecuted her with so much zeal. --According to custom.