"Some days later, she demanded of M. de Cindré a country-house. He could refuse her nothing, and rented one for her at Pantin, which he furnished magnificently.
"M. de Cindré went to visit her one evening, and, to give her an agreeable surprise, entered by a back door, and found the demoiselle Clairon with a young man.... He withdrew, without speaking to any one, and without his presence being discovered. The following day, he sent and removed the furniture which he had placed in the house, and abandoned Mlle. Clairon.
"The young man in question is M. de Jaucourt, an officer of dragoons, who, about two months ago, was arrested for being absent from his regiment without leave."
Under date October 23, 1748, we come to an entry of considerable interest:--
"The demoiselle Clairon has dismissed the Marquis de Thibouville. She has replaced him by the sieur Marmontel, author of _Denis le Tyran_. He is not recognisable since he has devoted himself to amusing this girl."[176]
The beginning of the _liaison_ between Mlle. Clairon and the author of the _Contes moraux_, which the latter relates, with much complacency, in his ever-delightful _Mémoires_, written, by the way, "for the instruction of his children," is distinctly amusing.
Marmontel had been in love with a certain Mlle. Navarre, whose heart he had stolen away from Maurice de Saxe, much to the indignation of the famous Marshal,[177] and who had made of him "the happiest of lovers and the most miserable of slaves." One day, he learned that his enchantress had jilted him, in his turn, for the Chevalier de Mirabeau, upon which he went home, "fell down like a sacrificed victim," and was for some time alarmingly ill. Mlle. Clairon came to console him, when the following conversation took place:--
"'My friend,' said she, 'your heart needs some object of love; you feel listless, because it is empty. You must interest; you must fill it. Is there not a woman in the world whom you can think agreeable?'
"'I know,' said I, 'only one who could comfort me if she chose, but would she be so generous.'
"'We must see as to that,' replied she, with a smile. 'Am I acquainted with her? I will endeavour to assist you.'
"'Yes, you know her, and have great influence over her.'