Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/101

 I don’t know how it is that we have never met; it would give me great pleasure if I sometimes saw you at my parties,' and so on. The next day I had a visit from Lady P., and the day after that came her card, and then an invitation; and, day after day, there was nothing but Lady P. So, at last, not knowing what it meant, I said to an acquaintance, 'What is the reason that Lady P. is always coming after me?'—'What! don’t you know?' she replied: 'why, the King of France is in love with you?' And this is the art, doctor, of all those mistresses: they watch and observe if their lovers are pleased with any young person, and then invite her home, as a lure to keep alive the old attraction."

Here Lady Hester paused, and, after a moment, added: "How many of those French people did I see at that time, especially at Lord H.'s! There was the Duchess of Gontaut, who was obliged to turn washer-woman; and even to the last, when she was best off, was obliged to go out to parties in a hackney-coach. Why, the Due de Berry himself lodged over a green-grocer's in a little street leading out of Montague Square, and all the view he had was to lean out of his window, and look at the greengrocer’s stall. I have seen him many a time there, when he used to kiss his hand to me as I passed. The Duchess of Gontaut afterwards brought up the Duke of Bordeaux. That