Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Volume 13

The memoir opens with a lively portrait of Parisian high society in 1719, where a wealthy but notoriously frugal Marquise—renowned for her relentless gambling—finds herself in a comic mishap at Madame la Princesse de Conti’s salon. A fashionable headdress catches fire, an embarrassed archbishop is splattered with egg, and the room erupts in laughter as the flamboyant lady battles humiliation with fierce wit. This scene captures the glittering excess and petty scandals that animated the court’s everyday drama.

Beyond the humor, the narrative drifts toward a more serious current when a daring poem, circulating under the title “Philippiques,” reaches the ears of the Duke of Orléans. Its vivid accusations and impassioned pleas move him to tears, revealing the fragile tension between personal loyalty and emerging political intrigue. Listeners are drawn into a world where levity and looming danger coexist, offering an intimate glimpse of a vanished era’s personalities and passions.