Villeroy being banished, the last remaining obstacle in Dubois' path was
removed. There was nothing: now, to hinder him from being proclaimed
prime minister. I had opposed it as stoutly as I could; but my words
were lost upon M. le Duc d'Orleans. Accordingly, about two o'clock in
the afternoon of the 23rd of August, 1722, Dubois was declared prime
minister by the Regent, and by the Regent at once conducted to the King
as such.
After this event I began insensibly to withdraw from public affairs.
Before the end of the year the King was consecrated at Rheims. The
disorder at the ceremony was inexpressible. All precedent was forgotten.
Rank was hustled and jostled, so to speak, by the crowd. The desire to
exclude the nobility from all office and all dignity was obvious, at half
a glance. My spirit was ulcerated at this; I saw approaching the
complete re-establishment of the bastards; my heart was cleft in twain,
to see the Regent at the heels of his unworthy minister. He was a prey
to the interest, the avarice, the folly, of this miserable wretch, and no
remedy possible. Whatever experience I might have had of the astonishing
weakness of M. le Duc d'Orleans, it had passed all bounds when I saw him
with my own eyes make Dubois prime minister, after all I had said to him
on the subject,--after all he had said to me. The year 1723 commenced,
and found me in this spirit. It is at the end of this year I have
determined to end those memoirs, and the details of it will not be so
full or so abundant as of preceding years. I was hopelessly wearied with
M. le Duc d'Orleans; I no longer approached this poor prince (with so
many great and useless talents buried in him)--except with repugnance.
I could not help feeling for him what the poor, Israelites said to
themselves in the desert about the manna: "Nauseat anima mea suffer cibum
istum tevissimum." I no longer deigned to speak to him. He perceived
this: I felt he was pained at it; he strove to reconcile me to him,
without daring, however, to speak of affairs, except briefly, and with
constraint, and yet he could not hinder himself from speaking of them.
I scarcely took the trouble to reply to him, and I cut his conversation
as short as possible. I abridged and curtailed my audiences with him;
I listened to his reproaches with coldness. In fact, what had I to
discuss with a Regent who was no longer one, not even over himself, still
less over a realm plunged in disorder?
Cardinal Dubois, when he met me, almost courted me. He knew not how to
catch me. The bonds which united me to M. le Duc d'Orleans had always
been so strong that the prime minister, who knew their strength, did not
dare to flatter himself he could break them. His resource was to try to
disgust me by inducing his master to treat me with a reserve which was
completely new to him, and which cost him more than it cost me; for, in
fact, he had often found my confidence very useful to him, and had grown
accustomed to it. As for me, I dispensed with his friendship more than
willingly, vexed at being no longer able to gather any fruit from it for
the advantage of the State or himself, wholly abandoned as he was to his
Paris pleasures and to his minister. The conviction of my complete
inutility more and more kept me in the background, without the slightest
suspicion that different conduct could be dangerous to me, or that, weak
and abandoned to Dubois as was the Regent, the former could ever exile
me, like the Duc de Roailles, and Cariillac, or disgust me into exiling
myself. I followed, then, my accustomed life. That is to say, never saw
M. le Duc d'Orleans except tete-a-tete, and then very seldom at intervals
that each time grew longer, coldly, briefly, never talking to him of
business, or, if he did to me, returning the conversation, and replying
it! a manner to make it drop. Acting thus, it is easy to see that I was
mixed up in nothing, and what I shall have to relate now will have less
of the singularity and instructiveness of good and faithful memoirs, than
of the dryness and sterility of the gazettes.
First of all I will finish my account of Cardinal Dubois. I have very
little more to say of him; for he had scarcely begun to enjoy his high
honours when Death came to laugh at him for the sweating labour he had
taken to acquire them.
On the 11th of June, 1723, the King went to reside at Meudon, ostensibly
in order that the chateau of Versailles might be cleared--in reality,
to accommodate Cardinal Dubois. He had just presided over the assembly
of the day, and flattered to the last degree at this, wished to repose
upon the honour. He desired, also, to be present sometimes at the
assembling of the Company of the Indies. Meudon brought him half-way to
Paris, and saved him a journey. His debauchery had so shattered his
health that the movement of a coach gave him pains which he very
carefully hid.
The King held at Meudon a review of his household, which in his pride the
Cardinal must needs attend. It cost him dear. He mounted on horseback
the better, to enjoy his triumph; he suffered cruelly, and became so
violently ill that he was obliged to have assistance. The most
celebrated doctors and physicians were called in, with great secrecy.
They shook their heads, and came so often that news of the illness began
to transpire. Dubois was unable to go to Paris again more than once or
twice, and then with much trouble, and solely to conceal his malady,
which gave him no repose.
He left nothing undone, in fact, to hide it from the world; he went as
often as he could to the council; apprised the ambassadors he would go to
Paris, and did not go; kept himself invisible at home, and bestowed the
most frightful abuse upon everybody who dared to intrude upon him. On
Saturday, the 7th of August, he was so ill that the doctors declared he
must submit to an operation, which was very urgent, and without which he
could hope to live but a few days; because the abscess he had having
burst the day he mounted on horseback, gangrene had commenced, with an
overflow of pus, and he must be transported, they added, to Versailles,
in order to undergo this operation. The trouble this terrible
announcement caused him, so overthrew him that he could not be moved the
next day, Sunday, the 8th; but on Monday he was transported in a litter,
at five o'clock in the morning.
After having allowed him to repose himself a, little, the doctors and
surgeons proposed that he should receive the sacrament, and submit to the
operation immediately after. This was not heard very peacefully; he had
scarcely ever been free from fury since the day of the review; he had
grown worse on Saturday, when the operation was first announced to him.
Nevertheless, some little time after, he sent for a priest from
Versailles, with whom he remained alone about a quarter of an hour.
Such a great and good man, so well prepared for death, did not need more:
Prime ministers, too, have privileged confessions. As his chamber again
filled, it was proposed that he should take the viaticum; he cried out
that that was soon said, but there was a ceremonial for the cardinals,
of which he was ignorant, and Cardinal Bissy must be sent to, at Paris,
for information upon it. Everybody looked at his neighbour, and felt
that Dubois merely wished to gain time; but as the operation was urgent,
they proposed it to him without further delay. He furiously sent them
away, and would no longer hear talk of it.
The faculty, who saw the imminent danger of the slightest delay, sent to
Meudon for M. le Duc d'Orleans, who instantly came in the first
conveyance he could lay his hands on. He exhorted the Cardinal to suffer
the operation; then asked the faculty, if it could be performed in
safety. They replied that they could say nothing for certain, but that
assuredly the Cardinal had not two hours to live if he did not instantly
agree to it. M. le Duc d'Orleans returned to the sick man, and begged
him so earnestly to do so, that he consented.
The operation was accordingly performed about five o'clock, and in five
minutes, by La Peyronie, chief surgeon of the King, and successor to
Marechal, who was present with Chirac and others of the most celebrated
surgeons and doctors. The Cardinal cried and stormed strongly. M. le
Duc d'Orleans returned into the chamber directly after the operation was
performed, and the faculty did not dissimulate from him that, judging by
the nature of the wound, and what had issued from it, the Cardinal had
not long to live. He died, in fact, twenty-four hours afterwards, on the
10th, of August, at five o'clock in the morning, grinding his teeth
against his surgeons and against Chirac, whom he had never ceased to
abuse.
Extreme unction was, however, brought to him. Of the communion, nothing
more was said--or of any priest for him--and he finished his life thus,
in the utmost despair, and enraged at quitting it. Fortune had nicely
played with him; slid made him dearly and slowly buy her favours by all
sorts of trouble, care, projects, intrigues, fears, labour, torment; and
at last showered down upon him torrents of greater power, unmeasured
riches, to let him enjoy them only four years (dating from the time when
he was made Secretary of State, and only two years dating from the time
when he was made Cardinal and Prime Minister), and then snatched them
from him, in the smiling moment when he was most enjoying them, at sixty-
six years of age.
He died thus, absolute master of his master, less a prime minister than
an all-powerful minister, exercising in full and undisturbed liberty the
authority and the power of the King; he was superintendent of the post,
Cardinal, Archbishop of Cambrai, had seven abbeys, with respect to which
he was insatiable to the last; and he had set on foot overtures in order
to seize upon those of Citeaux, Premonte, and others, and it was averred
that he received a pension from England of 40,000 livres sterling! I had
the curiosity to ascertain his revenue, and I have thought what I found
curious enough to be inserted here, diminishing some of the benefices to
avoid all exaggeration. I have made a reduction, too, upon what he drew
from his place of prime minister, and that of the post. I believe, also,
that he had 20,000 livres from the clergy, as Cardinal, but I do not know
it as certain. What he drew from Law was immense. He had made use of a
good deal of it at Rome, in order to obtain his Cardinalship; but a
prodigious sum of ready cash was left in his hands. He had an extreme
quantity of the most beautiful plate in silver and enamel, most admirably
worked; the richest furniture, the rarest jewels of all kinds, the finest
and rarest horses of all countries, and the most superb equipages. His
table was in every way exquisite and superb, and he did the honours of it
very well, although extremely sober by nature and by regime.
The place of preceptor of M. le Duc d'Orleans had procured for him the
Abbey of Nogent-sous-Coucy; the marriage of the Prince that of Saint-
Just; his first journeys to Hanover and England, those of Airvause and of
Bourgueil: three other journeys, his omnipotence. What a monster of
Fortune! With what a commencement, and with what an end!
ACCOUNT OF HIS RICHES:
Benefices .............................324,000 livres
Prime Minister and Past ...............250,000 "
Pension from England ................ 960,000 "
--------
1,534,000 "
On Wednesday evening, the day after his death, Dubois was carried from
Versailles to the church of the chapter of Saint-Honore, in Paris, where
he was interred some days after. Each of the academies of which he was a
member had a service performed for him (at which they were present), the
assembly of the clergy had another (he being their president); and as
prime minister he had one at Notre Dame, at which the Cardinal de
Noailles officiated, and at which the superior courts were present.
There was no funeral oration at any of them. It could not be hazarded.
His brother, more modest than he, and an honest man, kept the office of
secretary of the cabinet, which he had, and which the Cardinal had given
him. This brother found an immense heritage. He had but one son, canon
of Saint-Honore, who had never desired places or livings, and who led a
good life. He would touch scarcely anything of this rich succession.
He employed a part of it in building for his uncle a sort of mausoleum
(fine, but very modest, against the wall, at the end of the church, where
the Cardinal is interred, with a Christian-like inscription), and
distributed the rest to the poor, fearing lest this money should bring a
curse upon him.
It was found some time after his death that the Cardinal had been long
married, but very obscurely! He paid his wife to keep silent when he
received his benefices; but when he dawned into greatness became much
embarrassed with her. He was always in agony lest she should come
forward and ruin him. His marriage had been made in Limousin, and
celebrated in a village church. When he was named Archbishop of Cambrai
he resolved to destroy the proofs of this marriage, and employed
Breteuil, Intendant of Limoges, to whom he committed the secret, to do
this for him skilfully and quietly.
Breteuil saw the heavens open before him if he could but succeed in this
enterprise, so delicate and so important. He had intelligence, and knew
how to make use of it. He goes to this village where the marriage had
been celebrated, accompanied by only two or three valets, and arranges
his journey so as to arrive at night, stops at the cure's house, in
default of an inn, familiarly claims hospitality like a man surprised by
the night, dying of hunger and thirst, and unable to go a step further.
The good cure; transported with gladness to lodge M. l'Intendant, hastily
prepared all there was in the house, and had the honour of supping with
him, whilst his servant regaled the two valets in another room, Breteuil
having sent them all away in order to be alone with his host. Breteuil
liked his glass and knew how to empty it. He pretended to find the
supper good and the wine better. The cure, charmed with his guest,
thought only of egging him on, as they say in the provinces. The tankard
was on the table, and was drained again and again with a familiarity
which transported the worthy priest. Breteuil; who had laid his project,
succeeded in it, and made the good man so drunk that he could not keep
upright, or see, or utter a word. When Breteuil had brought him to this
state, and had finished him off with a few more draughts of wine, he
profited by the information he had extracted from him during the first
quarter of an hour of supper. He had asked if his registers were in good
order, and how far they extended, and under pretext of safety against
thieves, asked him where he kept them, and the keys of them, so that the
moment Breteuil was certain the cure could no longer make use of his
senses, he took his keys, opened the cupboard, took from it the register
of the marriage of the year he wanted, very neatly detached the page he
sought (and woe unto that marriage registered upon the same page), put it
in his pocket, replaced the registers where he had found them, locked up
the cupboard, and put back the keys in the place he had taken them
from. His only thought after this was to steal off as soon as the dawn
appeared, leaving the good cure snoring away the effects of the wine, and
giving, some pistoles to the servant.
He went thence to the notary, who had succeeded to the business and the
papers of the one who had made the contract of marriage; liked himself up
with him, and by force and authority made him give up the minutes of the
marriage contract. He sent afterwards for the wife of Dubois (from whose
hands the wily Cardinal had already obtained the copy of the contract she
possessed), threatened her with dreadful dungeons if she ever dared to
breathe a word of her marriage, and promised marvels to her if she kept
silent.
He assured her, moreover, that all she could say or do would be thrown
away, because everything had been so arranged that she could prove
nothing, and that if she dared to speak, preparations were made for
condemning her as a calumniator and impostor, to rot with a shaven head
in the prison of a convent! Breteuil placed these two important
documents in the hands of Dubois, and was (to the surprise and scandal of
all the world) recompensed, some time after, with the post of war
secretary, which, apparently; he had done nothing to deserve, and for
which he was utterly unqualified. The secret reason of his appointment
was not discovered until long after.
Dubois' wife did not dare to utter a whisper. She came to Paris after
the death of her husband. A good proportion was given to her of what was
left. She lived obscure, but in easy circumstances, and died at Paris
more than twenty years after the Cardinal Dubois, by whom she had had no
children. The brother lived on very good terms with her. He was a
village doctor when Dubois sent for him to Paris: In the end this history
was known, and has been neither contradicted nor disavowed by anybody.
We have many examples of prodigious fortune acquired by insignificant
people, but there is no example of a person so destitute of all talent
(excepting that of low intrigue), as was Cardinal Dubois, being thus
fortunate. His intellect was of the most ordinary kind; his knowledge
the most common-place; his capacity nil; his exterior that of a ferret,
of a pedant; his conversation disagreeable, broken, always uncertain; his
falsehood written upon his forehead; his habits too measureless to be
hidden; his fits of impetuosity resembling fits of madness; his head
incapable of containing more than one thing at a time, and he incapable
of following anything but his personal interest; nothing was sacred with
him; he had no sort of worthy intimacy with any one; had a declared
contempt for faith, promises, honour, probity, truth; took pleasure at
laughing at all these things; was equally voluptuous and ambitious,
wishing to be all in all in everything; counting himself alone as
everything, and whatever was not connected with him as nothing; and
regarding it as the height of madness to think or act otherwise. With
all this he was soft, cringing, supple, a flatterer, and false admirer,
taking all shapes with the greatest facility, and playing the most
opposite parts in order to arrive at the different ends he proposed to
himself; and nevertheless was but little capable of seducing. His
judgment acted by fits and starts, was involuntarily crooked, with little
sense or clearness; he was disagreeable in spite of himself.
Nevertheless, he could be funnily vivacious when he wished, but nothing
more, could tell a good story, spoiled, however, to some extent by his
stuttering, which his falsehood had turned into a habit from the
hesitation he always had in replying and in speaking. With such defects
it is surprising that the only man he was able to seduce was M. le Duc
d'Orleans, who had so much intelligence, such a well-balanced mind, and
so much clear and rapid perception of character. Dubois gained upon him
as a child while his preceptor; he seized upon him as a young man by
favouring his liking for liberty, sham fashionable manners and
debauchery, and his disdain of all rule. He ruined his heart, his mind,
and his habits, by instilling into him the principles of libertines,
which this poor prince could no more deliver himself from than from those
ideas of reason, truth, and conscience which he always took care to
stifle.
Dubois having insinuated himself into the favour of his master in this
manner, was incessantly engaged in studying how to preserve his position.
He never lost sight of his prince, whose great talents and great defects
he had learnt how to profit by. The Regent's feebleness was the main
rock upon which he built. As for Dubois' talent and capacity, as I have
before said, they were worth nothing. All his success was due to his
servile pliancy and base intrigues.
When he became the real master of the State he was just as incompetent as
before. All his application was directed towards his master, and it had
for sole aim that that master should not escape him. He wearied himself
in watching all the movements of the prince, what he did, whom he saw,
and for how long; his humour, his visage, his remarks at the issue of
every audience and of every party; who took part in them, what was said
and by whom, combining all these things; above all, he strove to frighten
everybody from approaching the Regent, and kept no bounds with any one
who had the temerity to do so without his knowledge and permission. This
watching occupied all his days, and by it he regulated all his movements.
This application, and the orders he was obliged to give for appearance
sake, occupied all his time, so that he became inaccessible except for a
few public audiences, or for others to the foreign ministers. Yet the
majority of those ministers never could catch him, and were obliged to
lie in wait for him upon staircases or in passages, where he did not
expect to meet them. Once he threw into the fire a prodigious quantity
of unopened letters, and then congratulated himself upon having got rid
of all his business at once. At his death thousands of letters were
found unopened.
Thus everything was in arrear, and nobody, not even the foreign
ministers, dared to complain to M. le Duc d'Orleans, who, entirely
abandoned to his pleasures, and always on the road from Versailles to
Paris, never thought of business, only too satisfied to find himself so
free, and attending to nothing except the few trifles he submitted to the
King under the pretence of working with his Majesty. Thus, nothing could
be settled, and all was in chaos. To govern in this manner there is no
need for capacity. Two words to each minister charged with a department,
and some care in garnishing the councils attended by the King, with the
least important despatches (settling the others with M. le Duc d'Orleans)
constituted all the labour of the prime minister; and spying, scheming,
parade, flatteries, defence, occupied all his time. His fits of passion,
full of insults and blackguardism, from which neither man nor woman, no
matter of what rank, was sheltered, relieved him from an infinite number
of audiences, because people preferred going to subalterns, or neglecting
their business altogether, to exposing themselves to this fury and these
affronts.
The mad freaks of Dubois, especially when he had become master, and
thrown off all restraint, would fill a volume. I will relate only one or
two as samples. His frenzy was such that he would sometimes run all
round the chamber, upon the tables and chairs, without touching the
floor! M. le Duc d'Orleans told me that he had often witnessed this.
Another sample:
The Cardinal de Gesvres came over to-day to complain to M. le Duc
d'Orleans that the Cardinal Dubois had dismissed him in the most filthy
terms. On a former occasion, Dubois had treated the Princesse de
Montauban in a similar manner, and M. le Duc d'Orleans had replied to her
complaints as he now replied to those of the Cardinal de Gesvres. He
told the Cardinal, who was a man of good manners, of gravity, and of
dignity (whereas the Princess deserved what she got) that he had always
found the counsel of the Cardinal Dubois good, and that he thought he
(Gesvres ) would do well to follow the advice just given him! Apparently
it was to free himself from similar complaints that he spoke thus; and,
in fact, he had no more afterwards.
Another sample:
Madame de Cheverny, become a widow, had retired to the Incurables. Her
place of governess of the daughters of M. le Duc d'Orleans had been given
to Madame de Conflans. A little while after Dubois was consecrated,
Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans asked Madame de Conflans if she had called
upon him. Thereupon Madame de Conflans replied negatively and that she
saw no reason for going, the place she held being so little mixed up in
State affairs. Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans pointed out how intimate the
Cardinal was with M. le Duc d'Orleans. Madame de Conflans still tried to
back out, saying that he was a madman, who insulted everybody, and to
whom she would not expose herself. She had wit and a tongue, and was
supremely vain, although very polite. Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans burst
out laughing at her fear, and said, that having nothing to ask of the
Cardinal, but simply to render an account to him of the office M. le Duc
d'Orleans had given her, it was an act of politeness which could only
please him, and obtain for her his regard, far from having anything
disagreeable, or to be feared about it; and finished by saying to her
that it was proper, and that she wished her to go.
She went, therefore, for it was at Versailles, and arrived in a large
cabinet, where there were eight or ten persons waiting to speak to the
Cardinal, who was larking with one of his favourites, by the mantelpiece.
Fear seized upon Madame de Conflans, who was little, and who appeared
less. Nevertheless, she approached as this woman retired. The Cardinal,
seeing her advance, sharply asked her what she wanted.
"Monseigneur," said she,--"Oh, Monseigneur--"
"Monseigneur," interrupted the Cardinal, "I can't now."
"But, Monseigneur," replied she--
"Now, devil take me, I tell you again," interrupted the Cardinal, "when I
say I can't, I can't."
"Monseigneur," Madame de Conflans again said, in order to explain that
she wanted nothing; but at this word the Cardinal seized her by the
shoulders; and pushed her out, saying, "Go to the devil, and let me
alone."
She nearly fell over, flew away in fury, weeping hot tears, and reached,
in this state, Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, to whom, through her sobs,
she related the adventure.
People were so accustomed to the insults of the Cardinal, and this was
thought so singular and so amusing, that the recital of it caused shouts
of laughter, which finished off poor Madame de Conflans, who swore that,
never in her life, would she put foot in the house of this madman.
The Easter Sunday after he was made Cardinal, Dubois woke about eight
o'clock, rang his bells as though he would break them, called for his
people with the most horrible blasphemies, vomited forth a thousand
filthy expressions and insults, raved at everybody because he had not
been awakened, said that he wanted to say mass, but knew not how to find
time, occupied as he was. After this very beautiful preparation, he very
wisely abstained from saying mass, and I don't know whether he ever did
say it after his consecration.
He had taken for private secretary one Verrier, whom he had unfrocked
from the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, the business of which he had
conducted for twenty years, with much cleverness and intelligence. He
soon accommodated himself to the humours of the Cardinal, and said to him
all he pleased.
One morning he was with the Cardinal, who asked for something that could
not at once be found. Thereupon Dubois began to blaspheme, to storm
against his clerks, saying that if he had not enough he would engage
twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred, and making the most frightful din.
Verrier tranquilly listened to him. The Cardinal asked him if it was not
a terrible thing to be so ill-served, considering the expense he was put
to; then broke out again, and pressed him to reply.
"Monseigneur," said Verrier, "engage one more clerk, and give him, for
sole occupation, to swear and storm for you, and all will go well; you
will have much more time to yourself and will be better served."
The Cardinal burst out laughing, and was appeased.
Every evening he ate an entire chicken for his supper. I know not by
whose carelessness, but this chicken was forgotten one evening by his
people. As he was about to go to bed he bethought him of his bird, rang,
cried out, stormed against his servants, who ran and coolly listened to
him. Upon this he cried the more, and complained of not having been
served. He was astonished when they replied to him that he had eaten his
chicken, but that if he pleased they would put another down to the spit.
"What!" said he, "I have eaten my chicken!"
The bold and cool assertion of his people persuaded him, and they laughed
at him.
I will say no more, because, I repeat it, volumes might be filled with
these details. I have said enough to show what was this monstrous
personage, whose death was a relief to great and little, to all Europe,
even to his brother, whom he treated like a negro. He wanted to dismiss
a groom on one occasion for having lent one of his coaches to this same
brother, to go somewhere in Paris.
The most relieved of all was M. le Duc d'Orleans. For a long time he had
groaned in secret beneath the weight of a domination so harsh, and of
chains he had forged for himself. Not only he could no longer dispose or
decide upon anything, but he could get the Cardinal to do nothing, great
or small, he desired done. He was obliged, in everything, to follow the
will of the Cardinal, who became furious, reproached him, and stormed
at him when too much contradicted. The poor Prince felt thus the
abandonment into which he had cast himself, and, by this abandonment,
the power of the Cardinal, and the eclipse of his own power. He feared
him; Dubois had become insupportable to him; he was dying with desire, as
was shown in a thousand things, to get rid of him, but he dared not--he
did not know how to set about it; and, isolated and unceasingly wretched
as he was, there was nobody to whom he could unbosom himself; and the
Cardinal, well informed of this, increased his freaks, so as to retain by
fear what he had usurped by artifice, and what he no longer hoped to
preserve in any other way.
As soon as Dubois was dead, M. le Duc d'Orleans returned to Meudon, to
inform the King of the event. The King immediately begged him to charge
himself with the management of public affairs, declared him prime
minister, and received, the next day, his oath, the patent of which was
immediately sent to the Parliament, and verified. This prompt
declaration was caused by the fear Frejus had to see a private person
prime minister. The King liked M. le Duc d'Orleans, as we have already
seen by the respect he received from him, and by his manner of working
with him. The Regent, without danger of being taken at his word, always
left him master of all favours, and of the choice of persons he proposed
to him; and, besides, never bothered him, or allowed business to
interfere with his amusements. In spite of all the care and all the
suppleness Dubois had employed in order to gain the spirit of the King,
he never could succeed, and people remarked, without having wonderful
eyes, a very decided repugnance of the King for him. The Cardinal was
afflicted, but redoubled his efforts, in the hope at last of success.
But, in addition to his own disagreeable manners, heightened by the
visible efforts he made to please, he had two enemies near the King, very
watchful to keep him away from the young prince--the Marechal de
Villeroy, while he was there, and Frejus, who was much more dangerous,
and who was resolved to overthrow him. Death, as we have seen, spared
him the trouble.
The Court returned from Meudon to Paris on the 13th of August. Soon
after I met M. le Duc d'Orleans there.
As soon as he saw me enter his cabinet he ran to me, and eagerly asked me
if I meant to abandon him. I replied that while his Cardinal lived I
felt I should be useless to him, but that now this obstacle was removed,
I should always be very humbly at his service. He promised to live with
me on the same terms as before, and, without a word upon the Cardinal,
began to talk about home and foreign affairs. If I flattered myself that
I was to be again of use to him for any length of time, events soon came
to change the prospect. But I will not anticipate my story.