Queen of the Jesters





By Max Pemberton

New York Dodd, Mead and Company 1897

adventure 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 Abbe 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.