Beginning of the Ministry of Monsieur le Duc—His early popularity—Difficulties of the situation—Philippe d’Orléans replaced by three new powers: Louis XV., Fleury, and Philip V. of Spain—Futile negotiations between Monsieur le Duc and the Orléans faction—Madame de Prie advises the prince to take the offensive—Resumption of the proceedings against La Jonchère and his accomplices—Indignation and alarm of the Orléanists—Attempted assassination of La Guillonière, in mistake for Pâris-Duverney—Conspiracy against the lives of Monsieur le Duc and his mistress—Madame de Prie insists on prompt and energetic action, and Le Blanc and the Belle-Isles are thrown into the Bastille—Arrest of Lempereur and other persons—The Government is determined on the total ruin of Le Blanc—Murder of Gazan de la Combe—La Blanc claims the privilege of being tried by the assembled chambers of the Parlement—Efforts of Monsieur le Duc and Madame de Prie to counteract the influence of Fleury over Louis XV.—Recall of Villeroy—Visit of the King of Chantilly—Trial of Le Blanc—Extraordinary proceedings—Acquittal of the accused.
Outside the faction opposed to the Condés, the elevation of Monsieur le Duc was not ill received. With the bulk of the nation Philippe d’Orléans had never been popular. The people had been unable to forget the horrible suspicions concerning him which the successive deaths of the Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne, the little Duc de Bretagne and the Duc de Berry had aroused, and many worthy persons steadfastly refused to see in the really touching respect and affection which he had always shown for the young King anything but a cloak for the most sinister designs. The middle-classes blamed him for the financial disasters which had involved so many of them in ruin, and credited him, very absurdly, with the intention of recalling Law. The clergy and the devout had been alienated by his debauched life and his contempt for religion. Thus, the very real service which he had rendered France in maintaining peace, with the exception of a brief interval, for eight years, was forgotten, and the advent of his successor hailed with almost a sigh of relief.
It is true that there were not a few, such as the advocate Barbier, who regretted the change of rulers, and predicted that it was Madame de Prie who would govern the kingdom, and “lay her hands on as much money as she could”;[264] but, on the whole, the possibility of a term of petticoat government does not appear to have aroused much uneasiness.
Monsieur le Duc, on his side, neglected nothing to make himself popular. Though his manners were usually somewhat brusque, he could be charming when he chose to take the trouble, and, during the first few weeks of his Ministry, he was so affable and so courteous, so considerate and so obliging, that he pleased everyone who approached him. The good impression thus created was strengthened by the diminution of several taxes which had weighed very hardly on the Parisians, and by the magnanimity he displayed towards those whose hostility to him was notorious; and soon the gazettes were chanting in unison the praises of the new Prime Minister, and declaring that France was indeed fortunate to have so admirable a prince at the head of affairs.
But this popularity was only momentary, for the difficulties of the situation were immense, the task before him one of the most ungrateful that could well be imagined; and it would have needed a far more experienced and subtle politician than Monsieur le Duc to have steered a safe course amid the shoals and quicksands that surrounded him. The Treasury was empty and the follies of the “System” still unpaid for; commerce was almost annihilated; the Church rent by the Jansenist schism; the Court a battle-ground for contending factions, one of which regarded the new Prime Minister with the bitterest hostility. And, in place of the Regent and Dubois, three new powers had arisen; two close at hand, the young King and his preceptor, Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus; the other distant, Spain, represented by Philip V.
The young Louis XV., whose majority had been proclaimed six months before, on completing his thirteenth year, was a most perplexing factor in the situation. D’Argenson calls him “an impenetrable personage”; Luynes “an indefinable being”; in a word, he was a mystery to the whole Court. Ostensibly, he cared for nothing but the chase, gambling[265] and the pleasures of the table; but many were of opinion that this frivolity and indifference were but assumed; that very little that took place escaped him; and that the time was not far distant when he would begin to assert his authority in no uncertain manner. Morose, uncommunicative, egotistical, he repulsed all the efforts of the courtiers of both sexes to ingratiate themselves with him, and reserved his confidence, and the little affection of which he seemed capable, for one person—his preceptor, the Bishop of Fréjus.
The rise of André Hercule Fleury had been remarkable. Though without great talents or high connexions—he was the son of a collector of taxes at his native town of Lodève—he had understood so well the art of insinuating himself into the good graces of every one who was in a position to advance his fortunes, that obstacles disappeared before him as snow melts in the sun. “He was what one might call a true wheedler,” writes Saint-Simon, who allows us to perceive in the portrait which he has drawn of him something of the jealousy which his extraordinary good fortune had inspired. He wheedled himself into the favour of the Cardinal de Bonzy, who brought him to Court and obtained for him the post of almoner to Queen Maria Theresa; he wheedled himself into that of his royal mistress, of the Duchesse de Bourgogne, of the Duc and Duchesse du Maine, and, finally, into that of Louis XIV., who a few months before his death nominated him preceptor to the Dauphin.
ANDRÉ HERCULE, CARDINAL DE FLEURY
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY P. DREVET, AFTER THE PAINTING BY HYACINTHE RIGAUD