You ask me what has recently made me so angry; I cannot tell it in
detail, only in the gross. It is the horrible coquetry of Mlle. de
Valois with that cursèd Duc de Richelieu, who has shown the letters
that he had from her, for he only loves her from vanity. All the young
seigneurs of the Court have read the letters in which she assigns him
rendezvous. Her mother wanted me to take her here with me, which I
refused curtly; but she is now returning to the charge. I am horribly
vexed; the human species disgusts me. I cannot endure the idea of
having her; but I must, to avoid worse scandal; the very sight of that
heedless creature will make me ill. All this is the result of the
apathy and nullity of the mother; may God forgive her! but she has
brought up her daughters very ill.
The Duc de Richelieu is bold and full of impertinence; he knows the
kindness of my son and abuses it; if justice were done he would pay
for his manoeuvres and his temerity with his head; he has triply
deserved it. I am not cruel, but I could see him hanging from a
gibbet without a tear. He is now walking about on the rampart of the
Bastille, curled and bedecked, while the ladies are standing in the
street below to see that beautiful image. Many tears will be shed in
Paris, for every woman is in love with him; I don't know why, for
he is a little toad in whom I can see nothing agreeable. He has no
courage; he is impertinent, faithless, and indiscreet; he says harm
of all his mistresses; and yet a princess of the blood-royal [Mlle.
de Charolais, grand-daughter of M. le Prince de Condé] is so in love
with him that when he became a widower she wanted to marry him. Her
grandmother and brother formally opposed it, and with reason, for
independently of the misalliance she would have been, all her life,
most unhappy. He has had each of his mistresses painted in the various
habits of the religious orders: Mlle. de Charolais as a Franciscan
nun,--they say it is an excellent likeness; the Maréchale de Villars
and the Maréchale d'Estrées in the Capucin habit.