eager to present fresh mistresses to him, from which he generally
selected one. Amongst these was Madame de Sabran, who had married a man
of high rank, but without wealth or merit, in order to be at liberty.
There never was a woman so beautiful as she, or of a beauty more regular,
more agreeable, more touching, or of a grander or nobler bearing, and yet
without affectation. Her air and her manners were simple and natural,
making you think she was ignorant of her beauty and of her figure (this
last the finest in the world), and when it pleased her she was
deceitfully modest. With much intellect she was insinuating, merry,
overflowing, dissipated, not bad-hearted, charming, especially at table.
In a word, she was all M. le Duc d'Orleans wanted, and soon became his
mistress without prejudice to the rest.

As neither she nor her husband had a rap, they were ready for anything,
and yet they did not make a large fortune. One of the chamberlains of
the Regent, with an annual salary of six thousand livres, having received
another appointment, Madame de Sabran thought six thousand livres a year
too good to be lost, and asked for the post for her husband. She cared
so little for him, by the way, that she called him her "mastiff." It was
she, who, supping with M. le Duc d'Orleans and his roues, wittily said,
that princes and lackeys had been made of one material, separated by
Providence at the creation from that out of which all other men had been
made.

All the Regent's mistresses had one by one their turn. Fortunately they
had little power, were not initiated into any state secrets, and received
but little money.

The Regent amused himself with them, and treated them in other respects
exactly as they deserved to be treated.