I received a letter yesterday from my daughter; she and her husband
are, thank God, safely back at Lunéville in good health. She sends me
the measure of the height of her eldest son, taken the week before he
was eleven years old; he is just as tall as the Duc de Chartres, who
will be fifteen next July. I am afraid my grandson Lorraine is going
to be a giant, for the Duc de Chartres is not small for his age. All
my Lorraine children are robust; their mother is healthy and always
well; she is not good for nothing like Mme. d'Orléans. Never did any
one hear of such laziness as hers. She has had a sofa made on which
she can lie while playing lansquenet; we laugh at her, but it does no
good. She plays cards lying down; she eats lying down; she reads lying
down; in short, she spends nearly all her life lying down. It must be
bad for her health; and in fact, she is almost always ill; one day she
complains of her head, another of her stomach. But it seems, in spite
of that, she can make robust children; her three eldest daughters are
strong and healthy; the first and third are tall and stout; they are
built like men,--Mlle. de Valois especially.
The Montespan, the _guenipe_, and all the waiting-women made Mme.
d'Orléans believe that she did my son great honour in consenting to
marry him. She cannot endure any contradiction on the subject of
her vanity in being daughter of the king; she does not comprehend
the difference between legitimate and bastard children; her nature
is proud and full of vanity; my son often calls her in jest Madame
Lucifer. She takes all the flattering things that are said to her as
her right. She thinks her husband prefers his eldest daughter, the
Duchesse de Berry, to her; the daughter has no great affection for her
mother.