Cardinal Conti was old and feeble; all means were brought to bear upon him. Dubois had for a long time past engaged the services of Chevalier St. George; when the new pope was proclaimed, under the name of Innocent XIII., he had signed a conditional promise in favor of Dubois. The Regent, who had but lately pressed his favorite’s desires upon Clement XI., was not afraid to write to the new pontiff—
“MOST HOLY FATHER,
“Your Holiness is informed of the favor which the late pope had granted me on behalf of the Archbishop of Cambrai, of which his death alone prevented the fulfilment. I hope that Your Holiness will let it be seen, on your accession to the throne of St. Peter, that services rendered to the Church lose nothing by the death of the sovereign pontiffs, and that you will not think it unworthy of your earliest care to give me this public mark of the attention paid by the Holy See to the zeal which I profess for its interests. This kindness on the part of Your Holiness will crown the wishes I formed for your exaltation, will fill up the measure of the joy which it has caused me, will maintain our kindly relations to the advantage of the peace of the Church and the authority of the Holy See, and will fortify the zeal of the Archbishop of Cambrai in the execution of my orders to the glory of the Pontificate and of Your Holiness.”
On the 16th of July, 1721, Dubois was at last elected Cardinal; it was stated that his elevation had cost eight millions of livres. The frivolous curiosity of the court was concerned with the countenance the new Eminence would make in his visits of ceremony, especially in that to Madame, his declared foe at all times. “He had nearly two months to prepare for it,” says St. Simon, “and it must be admitted that he had made good use of them. He got himself up for his part, and appeared before Madame with deep respect and embarrassment. He prostrated himself, as she advanced to greet him, sat down in the middle of the circle, covered his head for a moment with his red hat, which he removed immediately, and made his compliments; he began with his own surprise at finding himself in such a position in presence of Madame, spoke of the baseness of his birth and his first employments; employed them with much cleverness and in very choice terms to extol so much the more the kindness, courage, and power of the Duke of Orleans, who from so low had raised him to where he found himself; gave Madame some delicate incense; in fine, dissolved in the most profound respect and gratitude, doing it so well that Madame herself could not help, when he was gone, praising his discourse and his countenance, at the same time adding that she was mad to see him where he was.”
The bearing of the newly-elected was less modest at the council of regency; he got himself accompanied thither by Cardinal Rohan; their rank gave the two ecclesiastics precedence. The Duke of Noailles, d’Aguesseau, and some other great lords refused to sit with Dubois. “This day, sir, will be famous in history,” said the Duke of Noailles to the new cardinal; “it will not fail to be remarked therein that your entrance into the council caused it to be deserted by the grandees of the kingdom.” Noailles was exiled, as well as d’Aguesseau.
The great lords had made a decided failure in government. Since 1718, the different councils had been abolished; defended by Abbe St. Pierre, under the grotesque title of Polysynodie, they had earned for the candid preacher of universal peace his exclusion from the French Academy, which was insisted upon by the remnants of the old court, whom he had mortally offended by styling Louis XIV.‘s governmental system a viziership. The Regent had heaped favors upon the presidents and members of the councils, but he had placed Dubois at the head of foreign affairs and Le Blanc over the war department. “I do not inquire into the theory of councils,” said the able Dubois to the Regent by the mouth of his confidant Chavigny; “it was, as you know, the object of worship to the shallow pates of the old court. Humiliated by their nonentity at the end of the last reign, they begot this system upon the reveries of M. de Cambrai. But I think of you, I think of your interests. The king will reach, his majority, the grandees of the kingdom approach the monarque by virtue of their birth; if to this privilege they unite that of being then at the head of affairs, there is reason to fear that they may surpass you in complaisance, in flattery, may represent you as a useless phantom, and establish themselves upon the ruin of you. Suppress, then, these councils, if you mean to continue indispensable, and haste to supersede the great lords, who would become your rivals, by means of simple secretaries of state, who, without standing or family, will perforce remain your creatures.”
The Duke of Antin, son of Madame de Montespan, one of the most adroit courtiers of the old as well as of the new court, “honorless and passionless” (sans honneur et sans humeur), according to the Regent’s own saying, took a severer view than Dubois of the arrangement to which he had contributed. “The councils are dissolved,” he wrote in his memoirs; “the nobility will never recover from it—to my great regret, I must confess. The kings who hereafter reign will see that Louis XIV., one of the greatest kings in the world, never would employ people of rank in any of his business; that the Regent, a most enlightened prince, had begun by putting them at the head of all affairs, and was obliged to remove them at the end of three years. What can they and must they conclude therefrom? That people of this condition are not fitted for business, and that they are good for nothing but to get killed in war. I hope I am wrong, but there is every appearance that the masters will think like that, and there will not be wanting folks who will confirm them in that opinion.” A harsh criticism on the French nobility, too long absorbed by war or the court, living apart from the nation and from affairs, and thereby become incapable of governing, put down once for all by the iron hand of Richelieu, without ever having been able to resume at the head of the country the rank and position which befitted them.
The special councils were dissolved, the council of regency diminished; Dubois became premier minister in name—he had long been so in fact.
He had just concluded an important matter, one which the Regent had much at heart—the marriage of the king with the Infanta of Spain, and that of Mdlle. de Montpensier, daughter of the Duke of Orleans, with the Prince of the Asturias. The Duke of St. Simon was intrusted with the official demand. Philip V. was rejoiced to see his daughter’s elevation to that throne which he still regarded as the first in the world; he purchased it by the concession made to the Regent.
The age of the Infanta was a serious obstacle; she was but three years old, the king was twelve. When the Duke of Orleans went in state to announce to Louis XV. the negotiation which tarried for nothing further but his consent, the young prince, taken by surprise, was tongue-tied, seemed to have his heart quite full, and his eyes grew moist. His preceptor, Fleury, Bishop of Frejus, who had just refused the Archbishopric of Rheims, seeing that he must make up his mind to please the Regent or estrange him, supported what had just been said. “Marshal Villeroy, decided by the bishop’s example, said to the king, ‘Come, my dear master; the thing must be done with a good grace.’ The Regent, very much embarrassed, the duke, mighty taciturn, and Dubois, with an air of composure, waited for the king to break a silence which lasted a quarter of an hour, whilst the bishop never ceased whispering to the king. As the silence continued, and the assembly of all the council, at which the king was about to appear, could not but augment his timidity, the bishop turned to the Regent, and said to him, ‘His Majesty will go to the council, but he wants a little time to prepare himself for it.’ Thereupon the Regent replied, that he was created to await the convenience of the king, saluted him with an air of respect and affection, went out and made signs to the rest to follow him. A quarter of an hour later the king entered the council, with his eyes still red, and replied, with a very short and rather low yes, to the Regent’s question, whether he thought proper that the news of his marriage should be imparted to the council.” “It was the assurance of peace with Spain, and the confirmation of the recent treaties; the Regent’s enemies saw in it the climax of the policy, by the choice of an infant, which retarded the king’s marriage.” [Memoires secrets de Dubois, t. ii. p. 163.]