“Between ourselves be it spoken,” said he, “there is but little to induce a wise man in your circumstances to join James the Third. I would advise you rather to take advantage of your father’s reputation at the French court, and enter into the same service he did. Things wear a dark face in England for you, and a bright one everywhere else.”
“I have already,” said I, “in my own mind, perceived and weighed the advantages of entering into the service of Louis. But he is old: he cannot live long. People now pay court to parties, not to the king. Which party, think you, is the best,—that of Madame de Maintenon?”
“Nay, I think not; she is a cold friend, and never asks favours of Louis for any of her family. A bold game might be played by attaching yourself to the Duchesse d’Orleans (the Duke’s mother). She is at daggers-drawn with Maintenon, it is true, and she is a violent, haughty, and coarse woman; but she has wit, talent, strength of mind, and will zealously serve any person of high birth who pays her respect. But she can do nothing for you till the king’s death, and then only on the chance of her son’s power. But—let me see—you say Fleuri, the Bishop of Frejus, is to introduce you to Madame de Maintenon?”
“Yes; and has appointed the day after to-morrow for that purpose.”
“Well, then, make close friends with him: you will not find it difficult; he has a delightful address, and if you get hold of his weak points you may win his confidence. Mark me: Fleuri has no faux-brillant, no genius, indeed, of very prominent order; but he is one of those soft and smooth minds which, in a crisis like the present, when parties are contending and princes wrangling, always slip silently and unobtrusively into one of the best places. Keep in with Frejus: you cannot do wrong by it; although you must remember that at present he is in ill odour with the king, and you need not go with him twice to Versailles. But, above all, when you are introduced to Louis, do not forget that you cannot please him better than by appearing awe-stricken.”
Such was Bolingbroke’s parting advice. The Bishop of Frejus carried me with him (on the morning we had appointed) to Versailles. What a magnificent work of royal imagination is that palace! I know not in any epic a grander idea than terming the avenues which lead to it the roads “to Spain, to Holland,” etc. In London, they would have been the roads to Chelsea and Pentonville!
As we were driving slowly along in the Bishop’s carriage, I had ample time for conversation with that personage, who has since, as the Cardinal de Fleuri, risen to so high a pitch of power. He certainly has in him very little of the great man; nor do I know anywhere so striking an instance of this truth,—that in that game of honours which is played at courts, we obtain success less by our talents than our tempers. He laughed, with a graceful turn of badinage, at the political peculiarities of Madame de Balzac; and said that it was not for the uppermost party to feel resentment at the chafings of the under one. Sliding from this topic, he then questioned me as to the gayeties I had witnessed. I gave him a description of the party at Boulainvilliers’. He seemed much interested in this, and showed more shrewdness than I should have given him credit for in discussing the various characters of the literati of the day. After some general conversation on works of fiction, he artfully glided into treating on those of statistics and politics, and I then caught a sudden but thorough insight into the depths of his policy. I saw that, while he affected to be indifferent to the difficulties and puzzles of state, he lost no opportunity of gaining every particle of information respecting them; and that he made conversation, in which he was skilled, a vehicle for acquiring that knowledge which he had not the force of mind to create from his own intellect, or to work out from the written labours of others. If this made him a superficial statesman, it made him a prompt one; and there was never so lucky a minister with so little trouble to himself.*
* At his death appeared the following pnnning epigram:—
“Floruit sine fructu;
Defloruit sine luctu.”
“He flowered without fruit, and faded without regret.”—ED.