Note 25 — Chapter VII · THE POWER OF COUNTESS PLATEN. (1684-1688.)

This collection is called Mémoires de Monsieur de Lassaye. It bears also the better title of Recueils de différentes choses, for the parts of which it is composed are very varied and disconnected—love affairs, philosophy, ethics, satire, reflections on various matters, and letters, all jumbled up together. Lassaye had only a few copies of this collection printed for himself and a select circle of friends, so copies are extremely rare and cannot be bought. Herr Edward Bodemann managed to stumble across one in a second-hand bookshop in Paris, and to him I am indebted for the perusal of the correspondence in the original French.