More than you Want to Know about the Court of Louis XIV

The Duc de Saint-Simon marvels over the impudence of Marie-Adélaide of Savoy, duchesse of Bourgogne, who could "do no wrong" before King Louis XIV of France "because she diverted him." One evening, the King and his mistress came to chat with her one evening before a play. In came Nanon, a chambermaid.

The duchesse de Bourgogne, in evening dress and jewels, stood with her back to the hearth and leaned on a small folding screen. Nanon, keeping a hand under her apron, went behind her and kneeled down. Seeing this the King asked what they were doing.

The princess laughed, and said she was only doing what the King did on theatre nights. The King insisted. "Do you really wnat to know?" she asked. "Since you haven't noticed, I am taking an enema." "What," cried the King, "do you mean you are taking an enema right there in front of us?" "That's right," she replied. "How do you do it?" the King wanted to know, and they began to laugh with all their hearts. The princess explained that Nanon brought the syringe all prepared under her apron, lifted her skirts while she held herself as though she was warming herself behind the fire, and Nanon slipped in the nozzle. Then Nanon lowered her skirts and left with the syringe, so no one was the wiser; people usually thought Nanon was fixing the princess's dress.

--Duc de Saint-Simon, The Age of Magnificence: Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV 84

(Sanche de Gramont ed., Capricon Books 1964)