FORE:When my alliance with the Princess of Piedmont was decided, the Duc de Vauguyon told me that the King desired to speak to me. I trembled a little at an order which differed entirely from the usual regulations, for I never saw Louis XV. without dArtois, and at certain hours. A private audience of his Majesty without my having asked for it gave me cause for anxiety....She was a strange character, full of artificial sentiment, affectation, and self-deception, and, unlike the first three heroines of this book, the mystery and doubts which hung over her have never been cleared up.