de Villeparisis: “You see, I’m nowhere near him; please understand that I’m not interested⁠—in any sense of the word, you old cat⁠—in little boys.” But when, twenty minutes later, she left the room, taking advantage of the general conversation, she slipped into my ear an invitation to come to her box the following Friday with another of the three, whose high-sounding name⁠—she had been born a Choiseul, moreover⁠—had a prodigious effect on me.

“I understand, sir, that you are thinkin’ of writin’ somethin’ about Mme. la Duchesse de Montmorency,” said Mme. de Villeparisis to the historian of the Fronde in that grudging tone which she allowed, quite unconsciously, to spoil the effect of her great and genuine kindness, a tone due to the shrivelling crossness, the sense of grievance that is a physiological accompaniment of age, as well as to the affectation of imitating the almost rustic speech of the old nobility: “I’m goin’ to let you see her portrait, the original of the copy they have in the Louvre.”