"You seem to have seen them all,"
said Madame de Pompadour, laughing. "Sometimes," said Saint-Germain,
"I amuse myself, not by making people believe, but by letting them
believe, that I have lived from time immemorial." "But you do not tell
us your age, and you give yourself out as very old. Madame de Gergy,
who was wife of the French ambassador at Venice fifty years ago, I
think, says that she knew you there, and that you are not changed in
the least." "It is true, madame, that I knew Madame de Gergy long
ago." "But according to her story you must now be over a century old."
"It may be so, but I admit that even more possibly the respected lady
is in her dotage."'
At this time Saint-Germain, says Madame du Hausset, looked about
fifty, was neither thin nor stout, seemed clever, and dressed simply,
as a rule, but in good taste. Say that the date was 1760,
Saint-Germain looked fifty; but he had looked the same age, according
to Madame de Gergy, at Venice, fifty years earlier, in 1710. We see
how pleasantly he left Madame de Pompadour in doubt on that point.
He pretended to have the secret of removing flaws from diamonds.
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