HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
sent for the minister of marine, M. de Machault, and, without assigning any reason, 
ordered him to write to the Governor of the Isles of Mauritius and Bourbon, to treat 
M. D’Auband with every possible mark of distinction; which order was punctually 
executed, according to the report of Baron Grant, who had been a long time in her 
society; and remarks, as an extraordinary circumstance, that he had seen that Prin¬ 
cess pregnant when she was upwards of fifty, about the year 1745. The King also 
wrote to the Queen of Hungary, with whom he was then at war, to inform her'of the 
fortune and situation of her aunt. The Queen accompanied her letter of thanks to 
the King with one to the Princess, in which she invited her to come and reside with 
her; but on condition that she would quit her husband and daughter, for whom the 
King engaged to make a suitable provision. The Princess did not hesitate a moment 
to refuse these conditions, and remained with her husband till the year 1747, when 
he died. 
" Being a widow, and without children, she returned to Paris, and took up her abode 
at the Hotel de Peru. Her design was to retire to a convent; but the Queen of Hungary 
offered to fix her at Brussels, with a pension of twenty thousand florins; but (adds 
M. Duclos,) I am altogether ignorant whether she went to reside there; but this 
I know, that within these six years she was at Vitry, where she lived in a very re¬ 
cluse manner, with no more than three servants, one of whom was a Negro. She 
was then called Madame de Moldack ; but I know not who M. de Moldack was, 
and when she married him. She is now a widow: I saw her as she was taking a 
walk, in the year 1768.” * 
In the second of the two letters mentioned in this Chapter, and dated 1751, 
Baron Grant speaks of the arrival of the famous M. D’Apres at Mauritius, and 
gives an account of his first astronomical and nautical observations there, which, 
with some important additions, will be the subject of the following Chapter, 
* This last account was written in 1775, 
