Excerpt from Fragonard Gossip of high politics came trickling down to Grasse as slowly as the fashions, yet the eleven-year-old boy's ears heard of the death of the minister, old Cardinal Fleury, and of the effort of Louis to become king by act. T hough Louis had small genius for the mighty business, and fell thenceforth into the habit of ruling France from behind petticoats, raising the youngest of the daughters of the historic and noble house of De Nesle to be his accepted con sort under the rank and honours of Duchess of Chateauroux. All tongues tattled of the business, the very soldiery singing mocking songs; when Louis strutting it as conqueror with the army, got the small-pox at Metz, and sent the Chateauroux packing at the threat of death. He recovered, to enter Paris soon after as the well-beloved, and to be reconciled with the frail Chateauroux before she died in the sudden agony in which she swore she had been poisoned. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.