The end of the year was stormy at Marly.  One evening, after the King had gone to bed, and while Monseigneur was playing in the saloon, the Duchesse de Chartres and Madame la Duchesse (who were bound together by their mutual aversion to the Princesse de Conti) sat down to a supper in the chamber of the first-named.  Monseigneur, upon retiring late to his own room, found them smoking with pipes, which they had sent for from the Swiss Guards!  Knowing what would happen if the smell were discovered, he made them leave off, but the smoke had betrayed them.  The King next day severely scolded them, at which the Princesse de Conti triumphed.  Nevertheless, these broils multiplied, and the King at last grew so weary of them that one evening he called the Princesses before him, and threatened that if they did not improve he would banish them all from the Court.  The measure had its effect; calm and decorum returned, and supplied the place of friendship.

There were many marriages this winter, and amongst them one very strange —­a marriage of love, between a brother of Feuquiere’s, who had never done much, and the daughter of the celebrated Mignard, first painter of his time.  This daughter was still so beautiful, that Bloin, chief valet of the King, had kept her for some time, with the knowledge of every one, and used his influence to make the King sign the marriage-contract.

There are in all Courts persons who, without wit and without distinguished birth, without patrons, or service rendered, pierce into the intimacy of the most brilliant, and succeed at last, I know not how, in forcing the world to look upon them as somebody.  Such a person was Cavoye.  Rising from nothing, he became Grand Marechal des Logis in the royal household:  he arrived at that office by a perfect romance.  He was one of the best made men in France, and was much in favour with the ladies.  He first appeared at the Court at a time when much duelling was taking place, in spite of the edicts.  Cavoye, brave and skilful, acquired so much reputation m this particular, that the name of “Brave Cavoye” has stuck to him ever since.  An ugly but very good creature, Mademoiselle de Coetlogon, one of the Queen’s waiting-women, fill in love with him, even to madness.  She made all the advances; but Cavoye treated her so cruelly, nay, sometimes so brutally, that (wonderful to say) everybody pitied her, and the King at last interfered, and commanded him to be more humane.  Cavoye went to the army; the poor Coetlogon was in tears until his return.  In the winter, for being second in a duel, he was sent to the Bastille.  Then the grief of Coetlogon knew no bounds:  she threw aside all ornaments, and clad herself as meanly as possible; she begged the King to grant Cavoye his liberty, and, upon the King’s refusing, quarrelled with him violently, and when in return he laughed at her, became so furious, that she would have used her nails, had he not been too wise to expose himself to them.  Then she refused to attend to her duties, would not serve the King, saying, that he did not deserve it, and grew so yellow and ill, that at last she was allowed to visit her lover at the Bastille.  When he was liberated, her joy was extreme, she decked herself out anon, but it was with difficulty that she consented to be reconciled to the King.