A JOKE AT THE OPEEA; 259

robe de chambre, as under similar circumstances he had per-
mitted the two Dauphines to do.

At the opera, one night this winter, the Abbs' Servien, not
liking certain praises of the King contained in a Prologue, let
slip a bitter joke in ridicule of them. The pit took it up, re-
peated it, and applauded it. Two days afterwards, the Abbe
Servien was arrested and taken to Vincennes, forbidden to speak
to anybody and allowed no servant to wait upon "Him, For
form's sake seals were put upon his papers, but he was not a
man likely to have any fit for aught else than to light the fire.
Though more than sixty-five years old, he was strangely
debauched.

The Due de la Kochefoucauld died on Thursday, the llth of
January, at Versailles, seventy-nine years of age, and blind. I
have spoken of him so frequently in the course of these
memoirs, that I will do nothing more now than relate a few
particulars respecting him, which will serve in some sort to form
his portrait.

He had much honour, worth, and probity. He was noble,
.good, magnificent, ever willing to serve his friends; a little too
much so, for he oftentimes wearied the King with importunities
on their behalf. Without any intellect or discernment he was
proud to excess, coarse and rough in his manners—disagreeable
even, and embarrassed with all except his flatterers; like a
man who does not know how to receive a visit, enter or leave
a room. He scarcely went anywhere except to pay the indis-
pensable compliments demanded by marriage, death, etc., and
even then as little as he could. He lived in his own house so
shut up that no one went to see him except on these same oc-
•casions. He gave himself up almost entirely to his valets, who
mixed themselves in the conversation; and you were obliged to
treat them with all sorts of attentions if you wished to become
a frequenter of the house.

I shall never forget what happened to us at the death of the
Prince of Yaudemont's son, by which M. de la Rochefoucauld's
family came in for a good inheritance. "We were at Marly. The
"King had been stag-hunting. M. de Chevreuse, whom I found

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