Lewis XV. would often lament, that he had no friends, and had a thousand times wished to have been a private person, for the sake of cordial friendship and sympathy, to the effects of which Kings are always strangers.
“No sooner have I distinguished a subject by some considerable post, but a hundred others, jealous of the favour, grow out of humour with me; and, at the same time, I do not get the love of him on whom I have conferred the benefit; he complains that I have not done enough for him, and they, for my having done nothing for them. All love favour, and care little for the King. I see about me only sordid souls, slaves to pride and ostentation, acting only from interest; so that were it not for the many favours emaning from the throne, they would not move a finger. Another, and rather worse, inconveniency annexed to the crown, is the impossibility for kings to distinguish honest men from those of a different cast. They are so like each other, as to be generally mistaken; for at court vice and virtue appear in the same colours. The bulk of those about me, I strongly suspect to be void of any one generous principle; but when I am for sifting them, my rank will not allow of the proper measures. Thus they remain impenetrable to me, yet I must employ them in the service of the state; and hence arise those public misfortunes, for which I am answerable both to the present time and to posterity.
“When some important choice is to be made, and I have pitched on the person, all France seems to lay their heads together to deceive me. His talents, his merit and virtue, are cried up to me; not one honest man do I meet with in the kingdom to mention a word of any fault of his; they are afraid of incurring the displeasure of him whom I have so recently distinguished by my favour; and to this mean spirited fear they sacrifice both me and the state.
“When, on the other hand, I withdraw my confidence from a minister, or some other place-man, then I am told that he is deficient in every political quality: those very persons who could never say enough in his praise, now draw him in the most contemptible colours; all his faults and errors, and sinister practices, are laid open to me in full detail. The terrible accounts given of him from all hands set me against him, so that I cannot bring myself to employ him, even though, by the reflections on his past conduct and disgrace, he should afterwards become thoroughly qualified for a public station.
“A patriot King is the most unhappy mortal under the sun; he has his country’s happiness at heart, and is beset by people who cross his good intentions. The ministers are the first in ruining a state, to save themselves the labour of reforming abuses: to leave things as they are, is soonest done; in the mean time, the evils continue, and when a Monarch, tender of the welfare of his subjects, would remedy them, he meets unsurmountable impediments; for the habit of a long and bad administration at length comes to supersede the laws and usages, &c. &c.”
Another time Lewis XV. was pleased to open himself to me on the same subject: “A great misfortune to a King is, that ministers generally conceal the true state of things from them. Sovereigns are always made acquainted with the calamities of their dominions the last; and this, lest such information should put them on taking the reins of government into their own hands; and every one makes it his study to keep them in the dark. The immense variety of concerns in a large monarchy, obliges him to trust to ministers, and these ministers, for the greater part, play false with him. On the last war, I consulted those who were at the head of the administration, whether the advantages of victories would balance the inevitable misfortunes of battles: one and all assured me, that by no other way could the kingdom be retrieved, than by the glory of my arms; and that the lustre and advantages derived from the victories, would be the more lasting and solid, as due only to the nation’s own strength.
“At the peace, I found they had deceived me; my subjects are in the utmost distress, and all owing to the war; so that to recover themselves must be the work of years; and should fresh disturbances happen, it will never be done, &c. &c.”
I likewise had my complaints. “Sir, said I to the King, my grievances, tho’ of a different nature from yours, are not less painful. The rancour of all France is pointed at me. The royal family inveighs against me; his royal Highness the Dauphin takes all opportunities of affronting me: your ministers look on me as the fatal rock on which all their designs go to wreck. The chief families of the kingdom treat me with contempt; and all this because your Majesty has thought me worthy of your esteem.
“Many carry their malevolence so far, as to impute the disorders of the finances to me, as if the administration of affairs was lodged in my hands. I am accused of having all the money in the kingdom; I am changed with the nation’s debts, as if I myself had contracted them. On any minister’s failing in his duty, the blame is immediately laid on me. I am exclaimed against for his being preferred, and his disgrace is imputed as a crime to me.
“It is I who bear the blame of all political misfortunes; and if I have not been directly accused of having declared war against your enemies, it has been said, that I might have prevented those murderous sieges and battles, as if the fate of Europe was at my beck, and I could model foreign courts.