Nothing new, except that my son came here yesterday afternoon and
brought me the decree which alters the legal value of the currency.
The _louis d'or_ will henceforth be worth thirty-six francs; those
who have a great deal of money will profit finely. I am not of that
number; it is a long time since money and I have kept company.
You ask me if foreigners professing the Lutheran religion can obtain
military employments here. No, they are never admitted except into the
Alsace regiment and the Swiss corps.
All parliament is unchained against my son, and it is certainly
sustained by the eldest of the bastards [Duc du Maine] and his
wife. As soon as any one speaks ill of my son and shows himself
dissatisfied, the duchess invites him to Sceaux, cajoles and pities
him, and spares nothing to excite him still further against my son. I
am amazed at his patience. He has courage, goes his straight road, and
does not fret himself about anything. The parliament of Paris has made
an appeal to all the other parliaments of France to unite with it;
but none as yet have committed that folly; on the contrary, they have
shown themselves faithful to my son. Everything has been done to rouse
the people against him by spreading libels, but so far without effect;
I think more would have been produced if the bastard and his wife had
not been mixed up in the matter, because they are detested in Paris. I
think what prevents my son from acting with vigour against the Duc du
Maine is, first, that he dreads the tears and anger of his wife, and
next, that he loves his other brother-in-law, the Comte de Toulouse.
My son will soon find means to pay the debts of the late king, for Law
(or Lass as they call him in France) is an Englishman who has great
talent. The people are not more pressed than they were in the days of
the king, but they are not relieved, and my son's enemies profit by
that unfortunate circumstance to rouse the public hatred against him.
It is false that he accumulates money; he has never touched what comes
to him as regent. I do not believe there exists in the world a more
disinterested being; he is even too much so; he makes beggars of his
children. Nearly all the tales told in the gazettes about him are lies.