With respect to the pregnancy of the Queen of England, the consort of James ii., whom we saw at Saint-Germain, it is well known that her daughter-in-law maintains that she was not with child; but it seems to me that the Queen might easily have taken measures to prove the contrary.  I spoke about it to Her Majesty myself.  She replied “that she had begged the Princess Anne to satisfy herself by the evidence of her own senses, and to feel the motion of the child;” but the latter refused, and the Queen added “that she never could have supposed that the persons who had been in the habit of seeing her daily during her pregnancy could doubt the fact of her having been delivered.”

[On the dethronement of James ii., the party of William, Prince of Orange, asserted that the Prince of Orange was a supposititious child, and accused James of having spirited away the persona who could have proved the birth of the Queen’s child, and of having made the midwife leave the kingdom precipitately, she being the only person who had actually seen the child born.]

A song has been made upon Lord Bolingbroke on the subject of his passion for a young girl who escaped from her convent.  Some persons say that the girl was a professed nun.  She ran after the Duke Regent a long time, but could not accomplish her intention.

Lady Gordon, the grandaunt of Lord Huntley, was my dame d’atour for a considerable period.  She was a singular person, and always plunged into reveries.  Once when she was in bed and going to seal a letter, she dropped the wax upon her own thigh and burnt herself dreadfully.  At another time, when she was also in bed and engaged in play, she threw the dice upon the ground and spat in the bed.  Once, too, she spat in the mouth of my first femme de chambre, who happened to be passing at the moment.  I think if I had not interposed they would have come to blows, so angry was the femme de chambre.  One evening when I wanted my head-dress to go to Court, she took off her gloves and threw them in my face, putting on my head-dress at the same time with great gravity.  When she was speaking to a man she had a habit of playing with the buttons of his waistcoat.  Saving one day some occasion to talk to the Chevalier Buveon, a Captain in the late Monsieur’s Guard, and he being a very tall man, she could only reach his waistband, which she began to unbutton.  The poor gentleman was quite horror-stricken, and started back, crying, “For Heaven’s sake, madame, what are you going to do?” This accident caused a great laugh in the Salon of Saint Cloud.

They say that Lord Peterborough, speaking of the two Kings of Spain, said, “What fools we are to cut each other’s throats for two such apes.”

Monteleon has good reason to be fond of the Princesse des Ursins, for she made his fortune:  he was an insignificant officer in the troop, but he had talents and attached himself to this lady, who made of him what he now is (1716).