I was fifteen.

The King was going out to hunt, and a numerous retinue followed him.

As he stopped opposite me he said, 'Mademoiselle Genet, I am assured you are very learned, and understand four or five foreign languages.'-- 'I know only two, Sire,' I answered, trembling.
'Which are they ?' English and Italian.'-- 'Do you speak them fluently ?' Yes, Sire, very fluently.' 'That is quite enough to drive a husband mad.' After this pretty compliment the King went on; the retinue saluted me, laughing; and, for my part, I remained for some moments motionless with surprise and confusion." At the time when the French alliance was proposed by the Duc de Choiseul there was at Vienna a doctor named Gassner,--[Jean Joseph Gassner, a pretender to miraculous powers.]--who had fled thither to seek an asylum against the persecutions of his sovereign, one of the ecclesiastical electors.

Gassner, gifted with an extraordinary warmth of imagination, imagined that he received inspirations.

The Empress protected him, saw him occasionally, rallied him on his visions, and, nevertheless, heard them with a sort of interest.