"Here is my brother, who has thrown himself for all he is worth into the party of the Molinists. What a pity it is that a brother of mine should think only of himself, should desire nothing but for himself, should be in everything the centre of his circle! Such a passion excludes public spirit. It leaves no room for that love of the common good, which one should long for after one's simple happiness, and far before one's own aggrandisement; for what folly is grandeur, and the thirst for power!... For the remarkable thing is that my brother cares more for a place which comes to him through an underground channel, through a party and through an intrigue, than by the way, simple and noble though it be, of capacity recognised and employed."[218]
Which was all very true, and at all of which that amiable sceptic would have laughed good-naturedly.
If the strait and narrow way was a little arduous, it was none the less resolutely pursued; and in April, 1737, d'Argenson was able to write:
"To-day has been a great day for me. The King has appointed me his ambassador in Portugal."[219] The charge, in the circumstances of the moment, might well have been an important one; and it was gratefully undertaken as a step to higher things.
"My whole design, in accepting the post which the King has just conferred upon me, has been to fit myself and to render myself eligible for office in the Ministry."[220]
In the elation of the moment, he reviews his chances of succeeding to the Chancellorship, which promised to become vacant by the withdrawal of D'Aguesseau.
"Now, at the King's age and in the circumstances of the reign, the man who becomes Chancellor with the cognisance of affairs of state, might well become first minister, by reason of the priority of rank which his office bestows. Et voilà comme on se laisse aller à des pensées ambitieuses!"
the philosopher concludes,[221] with that characteristic laugh at his own weaknesses.
D'Argenson's intimacy with the fallen minister had awakened some misgivings in the mind of the Cardinal; and the new ambassador takes occasion to remark:
"With regard to all that, my course is very easy; simplicity and straightforwardness will always be my warrant against the suspicion of such connections, with which my name has never been mixed up."[222]
It is curious that the man who wrote these words should have been on the threshold of a period when his prime interest and most active concern was centred in a labyrinth of Court intrigue. For about six years he was absorbed and immersed in the designs directed by a party at Court against the influence of Cardinal Fleury. Of all the pages of his Journal, the volume and a half in which this period is embraced is the least admirable and the least attractive; for the man is keenly interested in the issue of the struggle; not an incident or a detour escapes him; and we have an almost daily record of hopes and plans and futile ambitions, sometimes outbreaks of revolting spleen, set down in pages which are as difficult to read in cold blood as they were easy to write in heat. There is no question that the tone of hard hostility which criticism of d'Argenson has so often assumed, is explained, if it is not warranted, by the revelations of this period. Even the appreciation of St. Beuve was almost quenched by their perusal when the volumes of Rathery came into his hands; and in the last of his "Causeries" devoted to d'Argenson, the luminous enthusiasm of his earlier essays is exchanged for a tone of coldness and disillusion.[223] Had the prince of critics held the strife of politics in less abhorrence, he might have seen less reason to abandon the attitude which invested his earlier essays, not only with justice, but with charm.