note to M. le Duc d'Orleans unless he were in a state to read it and to
burn it afterwards.

Our preparations for the Bed of justice continued to be actively but
silently made during the next few days. In the course of the numberless
discussions which arose upon the subject, it was agreed, after much
opposition on my part, to strike a blow, not only at the Parliament, but
at M. du Maine, who had fomented its discontent. M. le Duc, who had been
admitted to our councils, and who was heart and soul against the
bastards, proposed that at the Bed of justice the education of the young
King should be taken out of the control of M. du Maine and placed in his
hands. He proposed also that the title of Prince of the Blood should be
taken from him, with all the privileges it conferred, and that he should
be reduced to the rank of a simple Duke and Peer, taking his place among
the rest according to the date of his erection; thus, at a bound, going
down to the bottom of the peerage!

Should these memoirs ever see the light, every one who reads them will be
able to judge how such a proposition as this harmonised with my personal
wishes. I had seen the bastards grow in rank and importance with an
indignation and disgust I could scarcely contain. I had seen favour
after favour heaped upon them by the late King, until he crowned all by
elevating them to the rank of Princes of the Blood in defiance of all
law, of all precedent, of all decency, if I must say the word. What I
felt at this accumulation of honours I have more than once expressed;
what I did to oppose such monstrous innovations has also been said. No
man could be more against M. du Maine than I, and yet I opposed this
proposition of M. le Duc because I thought one blow was enough at a time,
and that it might be dangerous to attempt the two at once. M. du Maine
had supporters, nay; he was at the head of a sort of party; strip him of
the important post he held, and what might not his rake, his
disappointment, and his wounded ambition lead him to attempt? Civil war,
perhaps, would be the result of his disgrace.

Again and again I urged these views, not only upon M. le Duc d'Orleans,
but upon M. le Duc. Nay, with this latter I had two long stolen
interviews in the Tuileries Gardens, where we spoke without constraint,
and exhausted all our arguments. But M. le Duc was not to be shaken, and
as I could do no more than I had done to move him, I was obliged at last
to give