In June, 1720, his "brief and troublous ministry"[46] came to an end, and the Palais Royal knew him no longer. He had but a short time to enjoy the rest which had come to him as a happy release. On May 8, 1721, he died. Many was the shrewd encounter he had had with the rabble of the slums; and as the old chief was borne to his last home, he was pursued by the curses of the basket-women of Paris. And hearing of it, proud and beautiful old Mathieu Marais turned in disgust from "this mad populace, which, while he lived, dared never look him in the face;" and alone with his journal, with his mind upon the man who had passed away, he writes:—

"Who will have his soul, I know not. In the other world, as in this, there must be a fine debate over it."[47]

He left behind him one who was to uphold the honour of a worthy name, and to bequeath to criticism an exercise no less perplexing. Upon the features of his son, the Marquis d'Argenson of history, the family lineaments are clearly marked. The moral fibre, the exuberant vitality, the rough irreverence for the world and its ways, which distinguished the men whose portraits have been sketched, descended to the heir of their name. We have but to see how the given material was affected by the influence of an inauspicious training, to be in possession of the radical substance of d'Argenson's character. In default of such knowledge of the man and his mind, it is impossible to criticise his life with justice; for without the secret of his singularities of temper, one is tempted to yield to that haste and impatience which they are too often apt to provoke. The secret once discovered, there is no longer any room for irritation; but we are content to pity him for the weaknesses of his character, while we admire him for its real nobility.

[II.]
1694-1724.
Youth and early manhood—Intendant of Maubeuge.

"I returned after supper at one o'clock. The man told me that his honour, the Chief of Police, desired to see me. It was to copy out fifteen circular letters to as many Intendants, and not to retire till it was done; my brother had already finished his task—an equal number—and my father had told him to go to bed. I took some coffee, and retired at four o'clock."[48]

He is a young man, very dark, with clear-cut features, his eye glancing with a rough vivacity as he plies his pen with nervous hand. There is a future before him; and, though he cannot be more than eighteen or nineteen,[49] he has already a past.

René Louis de Voyer d'Argenson was born at Paris in 1694, in the same year as two puissant men whose fortunes were to intersect his own, the Englishman, Henry St. John, and his friend and countryman Voltaire. Two years later he was joined by his brother, Marc Pierre, known to history as the astute and charming Count d'Argenson. His father, who had but lately come to Paris, was as yet known only as a rising Master of Requests; his mother was a sister of the distinguished de Caumartin, M. d'Argenson's patron and sponsor in the official world. Among his other natural endowments, the young René Louis possessed, and was possessed by, an expansive imagination; he early conceived and resolved upon a career. Before he was well in his teens, he was leading his brother along those devious courses by which a wholesome boy was to be turned into a fine gentleman and a man of the world.

"We were not born libertines, but are become so. I saw all the sights, I was at all the gatherings, I knew all the women. I thought to myself, what a fine figure I was making in the world."[50]