MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN.
21

** Not yet, Madame."
"How? neither to-iday nor yesterday? He is afraid
of compromising heaselfyou must send one of my
servants to the Hotel du Hanovre to inquire if the
duke.be ill."
" Yes, Madame; wiU you receive all who are waiting
at once, or do you wish to give any one a private audi-
ence?"
" Monsieur de Sartines firsts I must speak to him
alone."
The oilier was transmitted by the countess' woman to
a tall footman who waited in the corridor leading from
her bed-chamber to the anterooms, and the minister
of police immediately appeared, dressed in black, and
endeavoring by an insinuating smile to moderate the
evere expression of his grey eyes and thin lips.
" Good-morning, my dear enemy !" said the countess,
without looking round, but seeing him in the mirror
before her.
"Your enemy, Madame?"
"Yes; my world is divided into only two classes-
friends and enemiesI admit no neutrals, or class them
as enemies."
"And you are right, Madame; but tell me how I,
notwithstanding my well-known devotion to your in-
terests, deserve to be iucluded in either one or other of
these classes?"
" By allowing to he printed, distributed, sold, and
sent to the king, a whole ocean of pamphlets, libels,
versesall against me, It is ill-naturedstupidodi-
ous!"
"But, Madame, I am not responsible."
" Yes, Sir, you are; for you know the wretch who
wrote them."
" Madame, if they were all written by one author we
should not have tbe trouble of sending him to the Bas-
tileHercules himself would sink under such a labor!"
"Upon my word, you are highly complimentary to
me."
" If I were your enemy, Madame, I should not speak
the truth thus."
" Well, I believe you ! we understand each other now.
But one thing still gives me some uneasiness."
" "What is that, Madame:-"
"You are on good terms with the Choiseuls."
"Madame, M. de Choiseul is prime minister; he
issues his orders, and I must obey them."
" So if Monsieur de Choiseul orders that I am to be
vexed, tortured, worried to death, you will allow me to
*e vexed, tortured, worried?   Thank you !"
"Let us discuss matters a little,"said Sartines, sit-
ting down without being asked to do so, but without
any displeasure being exhibited on the part of the
favorite, for much must be pardoned in the man who
frnew better than any other all that was doing in
France. "Let us discuss this a littleand first, what
have I\ione for you these three days past?"
" You informed me that a courier had been sent from
Chanteloupto hasten the arrival of the dauphiness."
"Wasthat done like an enemy?"
" But about the presentation on which you know my
heart is setwhat have you been doing for me?"
" Doing all I possibly could."
'" Monsieur de Sartines, you are not candid!"
"Ah, Madame! I assure you, you are unjust. Did I
not find and bring you Viscount Jean from the back
room of a tavern in less than two hours, when you
wanted him in order to send him I don't know where,
or rather I do know whore."
"I had much rather you had allowed my brother-in-
law to stay there," said Madame Dubarry, laughing,
"a man allied to the royal family of Fi'ance!"
" Well, but was that not a service to be added to my
many other services?"
"Oh, very well!but just tell me what you did for
me yesterday."
"Yesterday, Madame?"
" Oh, you may well endeavor to recollectthat was
your day for obliging others."
"I don't understand you, Madame."
" Well, I understand myselfanswer, Sir, what were
you doing yesterday!-"
"Yesterday morning I was occupied as usual, writ-
ing with my secretary."
"Till what hour?"
"Till ten."
"What did you do then?"
"I sent to invite a friend of mine from Lyons, who
had made a wager he would come to Paris without my
knowing, and my footman met him just at the bar-
rier."
"Well, after dinner?"
"I sent to the Austrian lieutenant of police, infor-
mation of the haunt of a famous robber whom he
could not discover."
"And where is he?"
" At Vienna."
" So you are not only the Minister of Police at Paris,
but perform the same duties for foreign courts?"
'* Yes, Madamein my leisure moments."
"Well, I shall take a note of that. Then after hav-
ing despatched the courier to Vienna-----?"
"I went to the opera."
" To see the little Guimard?   Poor Soubise !"
"Noto arrest a famous pickpocket, whom I did
not disturb so long as he kept to the fermiers-general,
but who had the audacity to rob two or three noble-
men."
" You should say the indiscretion Wellafter the
opera-----?"
" After the opera?"
" Yes. That seems to be rather a puzzling question
is it not?"
"No.    After the opera? let me think-----"
" So.   How much your memory has failed of late."
" Oh ! after the operayes, I remember-----"
"Well?"
"I went to the house of a certain lady who keeps a
gaming table, and I myself conducted her -to For-
I'Eveque."
"In her carriage?"
"Noin a fiacre."
"Well?"
"Well, that is all."
"No, it is not!"
" I got into my fiacre again."
"And whom did you find in it?"
He reddened.
" Oh," cried the countess, clapping her little hands,
' I have really had the honor of making a minister of
police blush!"
" Madame" stammered Sartines.
" NoI shall tell you who was in the fiacreit was
the Duchess de Grammont!"
" The Duchess de Grammont?"
" Yes, the Duchess de Grammontwho came to ask
you to contrive to get her admitted to the king's private
apartments."
" Ma foi, Madame," aid the minister, shifting un-
easily in his chair, "I may give up my portfolio to you.
It is you who manage the police of Paris, not I."
"To tell the truth, Sir, I have a police of my own. So
beware! Oh, the Duchess de Grammont in a fiacre
with the minister of police at midnight ! It was capital !
Do you know what I did?"
" No, but I am afraid it was something dreadfulfor-
tunately it was very late."
" But night is the time for vengeance !"
" And what, then, did you do?r'
" As I keep a police of my own, I keep a body of
writers alsoshocking, ragged, hungry scribblers!"
" Hungry? you must feed them badly."
" I don't feed them at all.   If they became fat they
would be as stupid as the Prince de Soubise: fat, we
are told, absorbs the gall."
" Go onI shudder at the thought of them."
" I recollected all the disagreeable things you have
allowed the Choiseuls to do against me, and determined
to be revenged.   I gave my legion of famishing Apollos
the following programme: First, Monsieur de Sartines,
disguised as a lawyer, visiting an innocent young girl
who lives in a garret, and giving her, on the thirtieth
of every month, a wretched pittance of a  hundred
crowns."
" Madame, that is a benevolent action which you are
endeavoring to misconstrue."
"It is only such actions which can he misconstrued.
My second scene was Monsieur de Sartines, disguised
like a reverend missionary, introducing himself into
the convent of the Carmelites of the Bue Saint An-
toine."
" I was taking those good nuns some news from the
Indies."
"East or West Indieswhich? My third scene is
Monsieur de Sartines, disguised as lieutenant of the po-
lice, driving through the streets at midnight in a fiacre
with the Duchess de Grammont."
"No, Madame,,J exclaimed he. "Noyou would
not bring ridicule on my administration in that man-
ner!"
" Why, do you not bring ridicule on mine?" said the
countess, laughing. "But wait. I set my rogues to
work, and they began like boys at college, with exor-
dium, narration, and amplificationand I have re-
ceived this morning an epigram, a song, and a ballad,
of which you are the subject."
" You are not serious?"
"Perfectlyso; and to-morrow you shall receive them
all three."
"Why not to-day?"
" I must bave some time first to distribute them. Is
not that the way? Besides, the police ought always to
hear last about any new affair. I assure you, you will
be very much amused. I laughed three-quarters of an
hour at them this morning, and the king was nearly
dead with laughingit was that which made him so
late."
"I am ruined!" cried Sartines, clasping his hands.
"Ruined?    Nonsense!    You ave only celebrated in
song.   Am I ruined by all the verses made on me? No;
I only get in a passion at them, and then for revenge I
determine to put somebody else in a passion, too.   Ah I
what delightful verses!   I have ordered some wine to
my literary scorpions, and I expect by this time their
seifes are wrapped in happy oblivion."
"Ah, countess, countess!
" But, pardieu, you must hear the epigram:
" Oh, France, how wretched is thy fate,
When women hold the helm of state!"
No, noI am wrong: that is tbe scandai perpetrated
against myself.   But there are so many, I confound
them.   Listen, listen! here it is:
* A perfumer once sought of a painter a sign,
His skill than bis genius was duller,
For in a huge bottle, with knavish design,
He makes Boynes, Maupeou, and Terray to shine,
Displayed in their own proper color.
But for Sartines still room in the vessel he leaves.
And he labels tbe mixture, the essence of thieves.' "
"Cruel woman, you will net me mad!" cried Sar-
tines.
" Now we must look at the poem. You must know
it is Madame de Grammont who speaks:
4 Dear minister, you know my skin
Is to tbe piu-est snow akin;
Then grant to me this single thing
Oh, say so, say so, to the king.' "
"Madame, Madame!" cried  Sartines, more furious
than ever.
"Nonsense," said the countess. "You need not be so
uneasy about these little poems.   I have only had ten
thousand copies of them struck off."
"You have a press, then?"
" Certainly.   Has not the Duke de Choiseel one?"
" Let your printer take care!"
" Oh, it is kept in my own nameI am the printer."
" Shockingshocking !  And the king laughs at these
calumnies?
"Laughs? He sometimes gives me rhymes himself,
when my own inspiration fails."
"You know how I serve you, and you treat me
thus?"
" I know that you are betraying metbe Duchess de
Grammont wishes to ruin me."
" Madame, I declare to you she took me quite una-
wares!"
"You confess, then, that I wasinformed correctly?"
" I am forced to confess it."
"Why did you not tell me?"
" I came now for that purpose."
" I don't believe you."
" Upon my honor!"
" I bet two to one against that pledge."
" Behold me at your feet!" and he fell on his knees.
" I beg forgiveness."
" You are in the position in which you ought to be."
" Let us make peace, Countess, in Heaven's name!"
"So you are afraid of a few bad verses!   You a
mana minister!   Yet you never reflect how many
wretched hours such things make me spendI, a poor
weak woman!"
" You are a queen."
* A queennot presented at court."
" I swear to you I have never done anything hurtful
to your interests!"
"No; but you have allowed others to do so.   The
matter, how ever, is now, not the doing nothing against
them, but the doing all in your power to forward them.
Are you on my side?   Yes or no?"
" Certainly, on your side."
" Will you assist me? Will you allow nothing to in-
terpose to hinder my presentation?"
" For myself, I promise everything."
" No," said the countess, stamping with her foot,.
" Punic faith; I will not accept that. There is a loop-
hole in it to creep out at. You will be supposed to do
nothing against me yourself, but the Duke de Choiseul
will do all. Give me up the Choiseul party, bound
band and foot, or T will annihilate youdestroy you
Take care! verses are not my only weapons!"
"Do not threaten me, Madame," said Sartines,
thoughtfully; " there are difficulties about this pre-
sentation which you cannot understand."
" Obstacles have purposely been thrown in the way
of it.   You can remove them."
" It would require a hundred persons to do so."
" You shall have a million."
" The king will not give his consent."
" He shall give it!"
" And, when you have got it. how get a lady to pre-
sent you?"
"I am seeking for one now."
'* It is quite uselessthere is a league against you."
"At Versailles?"
" Yes. All the ladies have refused, in order to pay
their court to the Duke de Choiseul, the Duchess de
Grammont, the dauphiness, and the whole prudish
party."
" Do not fearI have nearly obtained what I want."
"Ha!it was for that you sent your sister to Ver-
dun !'
" So you know that, do you?" said she, angrily.
"Oh, I have also my police, you know!" said Sar-
tines, laughing.
" And your spies?"
" And my spies,"
"In my apartments?"
"Inyour apartments."
" In my stable, or iu my kitchen?"
"In your antechamberin your saloonin your bed-
roomunder your pillow."
"Now, as the first pledge of our peace," said the
countess, " give me the names of those spies."
"No, countess, I should not wish to embroil you with
your friends."
" But name only the last who told you a secret."
"What would you do?"
" I would turn him out."
" If you begin in that way, you will soon have to live
in an empty house."
" This is frightful!"
"let perfectly true. Oh, you know we could not
govern without spies! So excellent a politician as you
must have discovered that long ago."
Madame Dubarry leaned her elbow on a table, and
seemed to reflect for some minutes, then she said
"You are right. Let us say no more on the subject.
What are to be the conditions of our treaty?"
" Make them yourself.   You are the conqueror."
" I am as magnanimous as Semiramis. Let rae hear
what you wish."
"Well, then: You are never to speak to the king
about petitions on the subject of wheat; for, traitress!
you have promised your support to those petitions. "
" Very well! Take away all the petitions with you
they are in a box there."
" As a reward, here is a document drawn up by the
peers of the kingdom respecting presentations, and
the right of sitting in the royal presence."
" A document which you were charged to give his
majesty?"
"Yes."
"But what will you say to them?"
" That I have given it. You will thus gain time; and
you are too clever in your tactics not to take advantage
of it."
At this moment the folding-doors were thrown open,
and a negro announced. "The king!"
The two allies hastened to hide their mutual pledge
of peace and good understanding, and turned to salute
his majesty, Louisthe fifteenth of that name.
Chapter XXIV.King Louis the Fifteenth.
The king entered with head erect, with a firm step,
his eye full of life, and a smile on his lips. As th
doors were opened, a double file of bowing heads was
seen, belonging to the courtiers who had boen long
waiting in the antechamber, and who were now more
desirous of admittanee than ever, since they could
thus pay their court to two powers at once: but the
doors closed on them, for the king made a sign that no
one should follow him. He found himself alone,
therefore, with the countess and tbe minister of police
for we need not reckon the waiting-maid or the little
negro boy.
"Good morning, Countess," said the king, kissing
Madame Dubarry's hand. " Ha, fresh as any rose, I
see! Good morning, Sartinesis this your cabinet,
where you write your despatches? Heavens! what
heaps of papers! Hide themhide them! Ha, whai
a beautiful fountain, Countess!"
And, with the versatile curiosity of one always in
search of something to amuse him, he fixed his eyes
on a large china ornament which had been brought in
since the evening before and placed in a corner of the
countess' bedroom.
"Sire," replied the countess, "it is a Chinese foun-
tain; by turning this cock, the water comes out, and
makes these birds sing and these fishes swim; then th
doors of tbe pagoda open, and there comes out a pro-
cession of mandarins.
" Very pretty !very pretty, indeed !"
At this moment the little negro walked across the
room, dressed in tbe fantastic fashion iu which, at this
period, they dressed their Osmans and Othellos. He
wore a little turban, ornamented with a lofty plume of
feathers, on one side of his head, a vest embroidered
with gold, which permitted his ebony arms to be seen,
and slashed breeches of white brocaded satin: round
his waist was a scarf of various bright colors, which
connected the breeches with a richly embroidered
jacket, and a dagger, ornamented with precious stones,
was stuck in the scarf bound around his waist.
" Peste !" cried the king, "how splendid Zamore is
to-day!"
The negro stopped to admire himself before a
mirror.
" Sire, he has a favor to ask of your majesty."
" Madame," replied the king, with a courtly smile, "I
am afraid Zamore is very ambitious."
"How so, Sire?"