When the marquis had ceased his chimes, the loving pair went
to meet him.
"Well, my good cousin," inquired he, as they approached, "which
of us was right? Could you hear it or not?"
"Yourself, most assuredly," replied the young man, not without a
slight blush. "I can assure you that both madame and myself
heard the bell the whole time you were ringing it."
"There, I told you so; I told you so"; cried the delighted husband,
triumphantly rubbing his hands.
I thought when this lively and piquant adventure was related to
me, that it was well worthy of being immortalized by the pen of
a La Fontaine. The marchioness gave these anecdotes with a grace
and talent peculiarly her own; and I sometimes imagined that
some of the many she favored us with had perhaps taken place in
a more recent period than that she assigned to them; and that,
in order to divert our suspicions as to who were the real actors,
she frequently substituted the
for what should have been
with more correctness the time. With manners so
calculated to win, she could not fail being a delightful companion,
altho' in my heart I could not help giving the preference to the
society of the marechale de Mirepoix.
Besides, the preference evinced by this lady in so generously
separating herself from all her family, in order to attach herself
to me, was not without its full value in my eyes. I knew myself
to be generally disliked by her brother and sister-in-law, the
prince and princesse de Beauvau, the latter of whom was secretly
the mistress of the duc de Choiseul, over whom she exercised an
equal empire with the duchesse de Grammont, and I was every day
the object of some fresh attack on their part.
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