There, she became attached to Mme de Grieu, who, being appointed abbess of the convent of St Louis at Rouen, took her friend with her.

[1] She was implicated in the Cellamare Conspiracy of Giulio Alberoni against Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, regent for Louis XV of France, and was sent in 1718 to the Bastille, where she remained for two years.

She returned on her liberation to the service of the duchess, who showed no gratitude for the devotion, approaching the heroic, that Mlle Delaunay had shown in her cause.

She refused, it is said, André Dacier, the widower of a wife more famous than himself, and, in 1735, being then more than fifty, married the Baron de Staal.

Her dissatisfaction with her position had become so evident that the duchess, afraid of losing her services, arranged the marriage to give Mlle Delaunay rank sufficient to allow of her promotion to be on an equality with the ladies of the court.

[1] Her Mémoires appeared about five years later, and have often been reprinted, both separately and in collections of the memoirs of the 17th and 18th centuries, to both of which the author belonged both in style and character.

[1] Besides her Mémoires Mme de Staal left two excellent short comedies, performed at the court of Sceaux, and some letters, the answers to which are in some cases extant, and show, as well as the references of contemporaries, that the writer did not exaggerate her own charm.