Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/713

Rh, however, in her Memoirs, that she often tried to attract his notice. The libertine character of Lewis XV. made many handsome women, who preferred pomp and power to virtue and honour, aim at attaching him. She threw herself in his way, as often as she could, but without success, till she effected her purpose by the means of a relation in office.

They met: the king, who was affable, and, as she calls it, an hundred leagues from the throne, was pleased with her wit, and she soon captivated him to such a degree, that he was uneasy out of her sight.

In the mean time her husband began to be alarmed, and was soon apprized of his misfortune. Resolved, however, not to acquiesce, he began to speak in the tone of a person that was deeply wronged; when he received a lettre-de-cachet, banishing him to Avignon; though afterwards he made interest to be recalled to Paris, on promise of a passive acquiescence in the loss of his wife, now firmly fixed in the king's affections; and though he and his wife never saw each other, they were permitted to keep up a correspondence by letters.

The following anecdote, in her Memoirs, shews that this had like to have been attended with fatal consequences to the unfortunate D'Estiolles. "My husband loudly complained of my living at Versailles, and wrote me a very passionate letter, full of reproaches against me, and still more against the king; amongst other indiscreet terms, calling him tyrant. As I was reading it, the king came into my apartment; I immediately thrust it into my pocket. I was for concealing the cause of the emotion I shewed; but, on his repeated instances, put my husband's letter into his hand, assuring him that I had no share in his temerity, and desired that he would punish the writer severely.—"No, madam," said he to me, "your husband is unhappy,