, and still I was kept in suspense. At last, about the middle of
April, I had an interview with Chamillart one day, just after he came out
of the council at which I knew my fate had been decided. I learnt then
that the King had determined to send no ambassador to Rome. The Abbe de
La Tremoille was already there; he had been made Cardinal, and was to
remain and attend to the affairs of the embassy. I found out afterwards
that I had reason to attribute to Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine the
change in the King's intention towards me. Madame de Saint-Simon was
delighted. It seemed as though she foresaw the strange discredit in
which the affairs of the King were going to fall in Italy, the
embarrassment and the disorder that public misfortunes would cause the
finances, and the cruel situation to which all things would have reduced
us at Rome. As for me, I had had so much leisure to console myself
beforehand, that I had need of no more. I felt, however, that I had now
lost all favour with the King, and, indeed, he estranged himself from me
more and more each day. By what means I recovered myself it is not yet
time to tell.

On the night between the 3rd and 4th of February, Cardinal Coislin,
Bishop of Orleans, died. He was a little man, very fat, who looked like
a village curate. His purity of manners and his virtues caused him to be
much loved. Two good actions of his life deserve to be remembered.

When, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the King determined to
convert the Huguenots by means of dragoons and torture, a regiment was
sent to Orleans, to be spread abroad in the diocese. As soon as it
arrived, M. d'Orleans sent word to the officers that they might make his
house their home; that their horses should be lodged in his stables. He
begged them not to allow a single one of their men to leave the town, to
make the slightest disorder; to say no word to the Huguenots, and not to
lodge in their houses. He resolved to be obeyed, and he was. The
regiment stayed a month; and cost him a good deal. At the end of that
time he so managed matters that the soldiers were sent away, and none
came again. This conduct, so full of charity, so opposed to that of
nearly all the other dioceses, gained as many Huguenots as were gained by
the barbarities they suffered elsewhere. It needed some courage, to say
nothing of generosity, to act thus, and to silently blame, as it were,
the conduct of the King.

Th