she changed her dress; her hair was arranged in front of a little table which was brought from another room; her dress and even her chemise was put on in our presence; it was the received thing, and it seemed to us so natural that we never even thought about it. I must say that, in spite of pretty quick eyes, I never saw more than if she had had ten screens round her. We were there, Pir6, Balbi, and I, young fellows of no importance, although we wore uniform, and were already men; but Monsieur was also present, and he paid no more attention than we did. Generally, he remained with his back turned, seated in an armchair in front of the fireplace, his hand resting on his crooked stick, the shadow of which thrown in silhouette, made the profile of Louis XVI. He had a habit of pushing the end of his stick into his shoe. During Madame de Balbi's toilette, which hardly lasted ten minutes, the conversation pursued its course. It continued in the same gay familiar tone, after the arrival of M. d'Avaray, of the Comte de Verac, and of the very small number of guests who were admitted to these evenings. We talked of theatres, music, news from Paris, songs, nonsense, gossip. Monsieur told anecdotes to perfection, and knew how to gloss over what might sometimes be broad in them. Games were played, rhymes were made, sometimes there was reading aloud . . . occasionally we had to make verses, and his Royal Highness condescended to give us lessons in prosody." Reportedly, she had a fierce temperament and resented rivals over her influence with the count of Provence, and her rivalry with his other favorite, Duke d'Avaray, was well-known and caused scenes on some occasions. In April 1792, she was forced to follow the countess of Provence to Savoy, since she was officially her lady-in-waiting. She eventually left Savoy and settled in Brussels, where she kept in contact with the count of Provence. During the separation, she gave birth to twins, which was reported to the count of Provence by his other favorite, d'Avaray, when she stated her plans to join the Provence party in Verona. Because of the time chronology, they could not have been the children of the count of Provence, which made him end the relationship. The father of the twins was