And not only that: but I
propose in this very place to narrate the curious details of an
adventure wherein I showed to less advantage than usual; and on
which I should, were I moved by the petty feelings imputed to me
by malice, be absolutely silent.
One day, about a fortnight after the quarrel between the King and
the Duchess of Beaufort, which I have described, and which arose,
it will be remembered, out of my refusal to pay the christening
expenses of her second son on the scale of a child of France, I
was sitting in my lodgings at St. Germains when Maignan announced
that M. de Perrot desired to see me. Knowing Perrot to be one of
the most notorious beggars about the court, with an insatiable
maw of his own and an endless train of nephews and nieces, I was
at first for being employed; but, reflecting that in the crisis
in the King's affairs which I saw approaching--and which must, if
he pursued his expressed intention of marrying the Duchess, be
fraught with infinite danger to the State and himself--the least
help might be of the greatest moment, I bade them admit him;
privately determining to throw the odium of any refusal upon the
overweening influence of Madame de Sourdis, the Duchess's aunt.
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