And consummate Kaunitz and it have led you into strange predicaments.

The Pompadour, for instance: who was it that answered, "JE NE LA CONNAIS PAS; I don't know her!"?
How gladly would the Imperial Maria Theresa, soul of Propriety, have made that answer! But she did not; she had to answer differently.

For Kaunitz was imperative: "A kind little Note to the Pompadour; one, and then another and another; it is indispensable, your Imperial Majesty!" And Imperial Majesty always had to do it.

And there exist in writing, at this hour, various flattering little Notes from Imperial Majesty to that Address; which begin, "MA COUSINE," "PRINCESSE ET COUSINE," say many witnesses; nay "MADAME MA TRES CHERE SOEUR," says one good witness: [Hormayr (cited in Preuss, i.

433 n.),--as are Duclos; Montgaillard; MEMOIRES DE RICHELIEU; &c.]--Notes which ought to have been printed, before this, or given at least to the Museums.
"My Cousin," "Princess and Cousin," "Madame my dearest Sister:" Oh, high Imperial Soul, with what strange bed-fellows does Misery of various kinds bring us acquainted! Friedrich was blamably imprudent in regard to Pompadour, thinks Valori: "A little complaisance might have--what might it not have done!--" But his Prussian Majesty would not.