Louis XV called Mademoiselle de Romans “ma grande”—according to the perceptive eye of Sophie Arnould—because “nature, abandoning its rules of good taste, had pleased itself to make a great exaggeration. Mademoiselle de Romans had a comely figure, and everything about her was in perfect proportion, but that perfection was colossal … The king himself, who was a very handsome man, looked like a schoolboy or half a king beside her.”⁶²⁰ Louis XV went too often to visit her at Passy, and too often he had a carriage and six horses sent to collect her. Choiseul, his minister, began to be concerned about possible political consequences; Madame de Pompadour was alarmed. Only the Maréchale de Mirepoix could find arguments to reassure her: “I certainly won’t say that he loves you more than her, and if with the wave of a magic wand she could be transported here and were at dinner this evening and everyone were aware of her tastes, then you would perhaps have reason to worry.⁶²¹ But princes are, above all, men of habit; the King’s friendship for you is the same that he has for your apartment, for what is around you; you have adapted to his ways, to his affairs; with you there is no embarrassment, he has no fear of boring you; how can you imagine he’d have the courage to upset all this in a single day, to settle down in a totally different world, and to make a public spectacle of himself with such a great change of decoration?” But Madame de Pompadour’s fear was tinged with curiosity: once the bastard was born, it was said that Mademoiselle de Romans went to the Bois de Boulogne, dressed in lace, with the infant in a wicker basket, and breast-fed him there, on a secluded path. One day Madame de Pompadour, preceded by her trusty Madame du Hausset, her face concealed by her bonnet and by a handkerchief that she kept over her mouth, pretended to be passing casually along the same path. Mademoiselle de Romans was breast-feeding, her jet-black hair held back with a diamond-encrusted comb. Madame du Hausset approached her and said: “ ‘What a pretty child.’⁶²² ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘I can say so myself, though I’m the mother.’ Madame, who was holding my arm, was trembling, and nor did I feel too confident. Mademoiselle de Romans said: ‘Do you live nearby?’ ‘Yes, Madame,’ I said, ‘I live at Auteuil with this lady, who at this moment has terrible toothache.’ ‘Oh, I am sorry, it’s a pain I’ve suffered much myself.’ ”