The Cardinal de Noailles has been pestering my son in favour of the Duc de Richelieu; and as it cannot be positively proved that he addressed the letter to Alberoni, they can do no more to him than banish him to Conflans, after six months' imprisonment. Mademoiselle de Charolais procured some one to ask my son secretly by what means she could see the Duc de Richelieu, and speak with him, before he set off for Conflans.
[This must have been a joke of Mademoiselle de Charolais; for she had already, together with Mademoiselle Valois, paid the Duke several visits in the Bastille. When the Duke was sent to Conflans to the Cardinal de Noailles, he used to escape almost every night, and come to see his mistresses. It was this that determined the Regent to send him to Saint-Germain en Laye; but, soon afterwards, Mademoiselle de Valois obtained from her father a pardon for her lover.—-Memoirs de Richelieu, tome iii., p. 171]
My son replied, "that she had better speak to the Cardinal de Noailles; for as he was to conduct the Duke to Conflans, and keep him in his own house, he would know better than any other person how he might be spoken with." When she learnt that the Duke had arrived at Saint-Germain, she hastened thither immediately.
I never doubted for a moment that my son's marriage was in every respect unfortunate; but my advice was not listened to. If the union had been a good one, that old Maintenon would not have insisted on it.
Nothing less than millions are talked of on all sides: my sun has made me also richer by adding 130,000 livres to my pension.
By what we hear daily of the insurrection in Bretagne, it seems that my son's enemies are more inveterate against him than ever. I do not know whether it is true, as has been said, that there was a conspiracy at Rochelle, and that the governor intended to give up the place to the Spaniards, but has fled; that ten officers were engaged in the plot, some of whom have been arrested, and the others have fled to Spain.
I always took the Bishop of Soissons for an honest man. I knew him when he was only an Abbe, and the Duchess of Burgundy's almoner; but the desire to obtain a Cardinal's hat drives most of the Bishops mad. There is not one of them who does not believe that the more impertinently he behaves to my son about the Constitution, the more he will improve his credit with the Court of Rome, and the sooner become a Cardinal.
My son, although he is Regent, never comes to see me, and never quits me, without kissing my hand before he embraces me; and he will not even take a chair if I hand it to him. He is not, however, at all timid, but chats familiarly with me, and we laugh and talk together like good friends.
[Illustration: The Regent and His Mother—166]
While the Dauphin was alive La Chouin behaved very ill to my son; she embroiled him with the Dauphin, and would neither speak to nor see him; in short, she was constantly opposed to him. And yet, when he learnt that she had fallen into poverty, he sent her money, and secured her a pension sufficient to live upon.