On his part, it must be said that the Duc d'Orleans had for the king, beside the respect which was his due, a love the most attentive and the most tender. The little business which could be submitted to his young mind he always presented to him with so much clearness and talent, that politics, which would have been wearisome with any one else, became a recreation when pursued with him, so that the royal child always saw his arrival with pleasure. It must be confessed that this work was almost always rewarded by the most beautiful toys which could be found, and which Dubois, in order to pay his court to the king, imported from Germany and England. His majesty therefore received the regent with his sweetest smile, and gave him his little hand to kiss with a peculiar grace, while the archbishop of Frejus, faithful to his system of humility, had sat down in the same corner where he had been surprised by the arrival of the regent.
"I am very glad to see you, monsieur," said Louis XV. in a sweet little voice, from which even the etiquette which they imposed upon him could not entirely take away all grace; "and all the more glad to see you from its not being your usual hour. I presume that you have some good news to tell me."
"Two pieces, sire," answered the regent; "the first is, that I have just received from Nuremberg a chest which seems to me to contain—"
"Oh, toys! lots of toys! does it not, Monsieur le Regent?" cried the king, dancing joyously, and clapping his hands, regardless of his valet-de-chambre who was waiting for him, and holding the little sword with a cut-steel handle which he was going to hang in the king's belt. "Oh, the dear toys! the beautiful toys! how kind you are! Oh! how I love you, Monsieur le Regent!"
"Sire, I only do my duty," answered the Duc d'Orleans, bowing respectfully, "and you owe me no thanks for that."
"And where is it, monsieur? Where is this pretty chest?"
"In my apartments, sire; and if your majesty wishes it brought here, I will send it during the course of the day, or to-morrow morning."
"Oh! no; now, monsieur; now, I beg."
"But it is at my apartments."
"Well, let us go to your apartments," cried the child, running to the door, and forgetting that he wanted, in order to complete his toilet, his little sword, his little satin jacket, and his cordon-bleu.