The adventures set out in these pages are taken from certain
episodes in the life of Corinne de Montesson, who was long a famous
figure in the Paris of Louis XV. Disdaining alike the salons of the
great, where her wit would have given her a distinguished place, and
the galleries of Versailles, where her indisputable beauty would have
commanded a royal welcome, Mademoiselle de Montesson established
herself in an old house in Rue St. Paul, and there, surrounded by a
little band of wits, scientists, and adventurers, she made it her
ambition to become acquainted with the dens of the city. To which end,
she practised a generous charity, and rescued more than one notorious
rogue from the gibbet. While the lower classes looked upon her now as
a worker of miracles, now as a witch, the Court was greedy to hear of
those exploits by which her name has come down to us. She had the
privilege of entertaining the King on more than one occasion, and
enjoyed to the end his support against the Lieutenant of Police, who
bewailed her authority over the vagabonds of the city; and against her
guardian, the Abbé Morellet, who demanded that she should be sent to
a convent of Benedictine nuns. Sufficient to record that her influence
was a continuing power in Paris until the year 1779, and that she died
at the age of sixty-four years in her château at Fontainebleau.