TWO:Mme. de Montesson had so far succeeded in her plan that she had, in 1773, been privately married to the Duke of Orl��ans. The marriage was celebrated at midnight in the presence of a small number of persons of high position. But the marriage, though known and recognised in society, was only a morganatic one. Louis XV. would never hear of her taking the rank and title of Duchess of Orl��ans, or any precedence that would have been the consequence. This was of course a continual grievance to her, but she was obliged to resign herself and make the best of the position, at any rate far more exalted than any to which she had the least pretension to aspire. She had an unbounded influence over the Duc d��Orl��ans, in whose household and amongst whose friends she was always treated as a princess, and with whom she led a life of unbounded luxury and magnificence. Like Mme. de Maintenon after her morganatic marriage with Louis XIV. she renounced the title of Marquise and was known as Mme. de Montesson, possibly thinking like the hero of the well-known incident: ��Princesse je ne puis pas, Marquise je ne veux pas, Madame je suis.��All this was a certainty supposing he had possessed the most moderate talents, and behaved with common decency. But at seventeen he was already notorious, even at the court of Louis XV., for his vicious life; an incorrigible gambler, and over head and ears in debt. His guardian reproached him, and his debts were paid, but the same thing kept happening until, when he was twenty years old, he lost in one night five hundred thousand francs, his debts besides amounting to another hundred thousand.

---