The Duchess de Talard, governess to the children of France, being lately dead; the King said to me, Who shall we entrust with the Dauphins young family? “Sire, I replied, Madam Talard was possessed of great merit, which makes it difficult to supply her place. I have thought upon all the women of France, and I do not know of any but the Countess de Marsan, who is capable of succeeding her.”
She was appointed, and this lady, who was acquainted with my interposition in her favour, made me her acknowledgments. This preference I had given her, created me many enemies. All the ladies that were excluded, considered me as the cause of their exclusion: thus is a King’s favourite loaded with public hatred. When there is a vacancy, she can ask it only for one person, and most frequently all those who laid claim to it, become the enemies of her that disposed of it.
The birth of the Duke of Aquitaine had diffused universal joy at court; and his death immersed the royal family again in melancholy—tears succeeded joy—but the subject was soon forgot. Had it not been for the funeral pomp, which lasted several days, he probably would have been no more thought of after the first. The spectacle of his death made tears to flow; without these obsequies, his loss would scarce have been mentioned. The court was still engaged in curbing the strides of the parliament and the Chatelet. This affair filled the state with edicts. A politician said, “that if the government had given the same attention to the other branches of the administration, France would have been the best regulated kingdom in Europe.”
This attention did not, however, restore order; no one of the parties would yield to the other.
At length this great affair, by which France had been so much disturbed, and given foreign nations so much scope for satire, was terminated just as it should have been terminated; that is to say, by the obstinacy of the parliament, and the weariness of the King. Lewis XV. (I cannot too often repeat it in these Memoirs) is a good Prince; his tender and sympathising soul is not of the number of those that are irritated by resistance.
The self-love of kings who will be absolute, creates disorders, which usually swallows up both states and politics. The Prince, who was desirous of maintaining the peace of his kingdom, and advancing the happiness of his people, yielded, the very instant he saw that, by opposing his parliament, a general revolution might be dreaded.
The King’s conduct in this respect, was by many greatly censured; he was accused of weakness. Perhaps he was animated only by respect. The shafts of ridicule began to fly; for kings of France, as absolute as they may be, are not exempted from their attacks. A prince of the blood thus expressed himself before several courtiers. “I always said, gentlemen, that the mountain in labour would bring forth nothing but a mouse.”
M. de Maupeou had a private audience of the King at Compiegne, where all the preliminary articles of peace were signed. The monarch declared to him, that he should recal the letters de cachet, and that the parliament might return to Paris, where the general treaty of reconciliation was to be framed.
The triumph was too great not to be accompanied with glory. The president immediately proclaimed his victory. He dispatched a courier to every court in the kingdom, and gave intelligence to his brethren, who arrived at Paris in triumph. Although this peace restored tranquility at Versailles, which influenced the happiness of my life; yet I acknowledge, my indignation was kindled to see the lawyers thus get the better of the King’s first resolutions. I was acquainted with their obstinacy, and this alone set me against them.
Reports were spread that I was the instrument of this reconciliation, and that the King yielded only at my intercession; but this was rumoured like an infinite number of other things, which had no more foundation. I acknowledge, that I ardently wished that these parliamentary disputes were at an end; but if I considered my own tranquility, I did not forget the glory of the King. I several times scolded M. de Maupeou, in the minister’s presence, for the little deference he paid to his master’s orders, and of the formal disobedience of his body. He constantly replied, with that gravity which is common to those who are at the head of an assembly, that he and his brethren were the most submissive subjects of the state; and this answer irritated me still more.