Under these circumstances,
if your bellicose disposition urges you on to war, we
hope, before you continue it, that you will loyally and
frankly declare it.
"In conclusion, be assured that I shall defend you to
my utmost, and am for life,
"Yours, etc."
Whilst we were awaiting Voltaire's reply, I determined to avenge
myself on the duchesse de Grammont, who had encouraged him in
his attack; and thus did I serve this lady. Persuaded that she did
not know the writing of his Danish majesty, I wrote the following
letter to her:--
"MADAME LA DUCHESSE,--I have struggled to this time
to avoid confessing to you how I am subdued. Happy
should I be could I throw myself at your feet. My
rank alone must excuse my boldness. Nothing would
equal my joy if this evening, at the theatre at madame
de Villeroi's, you would appear with blue feathers in
your head-dress. I do not add my name; it is one of
those which should not be found at the bottom of a
declaration of love."
In spite of all her penetration, the duchesse de Grammont did not
perceive, in the emphatic tone of this letter, that it was a trick.
Her self-love made her believe that a woman of more than forty
could be pleasing to a king not yet twenty. She actually went
in the evening to madame de Villeroi's dressed in blue, with a
blue plumed head-dress. She was placed next to his Danish majesty.
Christian VII addressed her in most courteous terms, but not one
word of love.
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