are of his people."

Even this avowal the Cardinal de Roche-Aymer promised Madame du Barri to
suppress; but the royal confessor, the Abbe Mandoux, overruled him, and
compelled its publication, in spite of the Duc de Richelieu, the chief
confidant of the mistress, and long the chief minister and promoter of the
king's debaucheries, who insulted the cardinal with the grossest abuse for
his breach of promise.[8] It may be doubted whether such a compromise with
profligacy, and such a profanation of the most solemn rites of the Church
by its ministers, were not the greatest scandal of all; but it was in too
complete harmony with their conduct throughout the whole of the reign.
And, as it was impossible but that religion itself should suffer in the
estimation of worldly men from such an open disregard of all but its mere
outward forms, it can hardly be denied that the French cardinals and
prelates about the court had almost as great a share in bringing about
that general feeling of contempt for all religion which led to that formal
disavowal of God himself which was witnessed twenty years later, as the
scoffers who were now uniting against it, or the professed infidels who
then, renounced it. Such as it was, the king's act of penitence was not
performed too soon. At the end of the first week of May all prospect of
his recovery vanished. Mortification set in, and on the 10th of May he
died.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Court leaves Versailles for La Muette.--Feelings of the New
Sovereigns.--Madame du Barri is sent to a Convent.--Marie Antoinette
writes to Maria Teresa.--The Good Intentions of the New Sovereigns.--
Madame Adelaide has the Small-pox.--Anxieties of Maria Teresa.--
Mischievous Influence of the Aunts.--Position and Influence of the Count
de Mercy.--Louis consults the Queen on Matters of Policy.--Her Prudence.--
She begins to Purify the Court, and to relax the Rules of Etiquette.--Her
Care of her Pages.--The King and the renounce the Gifts of Le Joyeux
Avenement and La Ceinture de la Reine.---She procures the Pardon of the
Due de Choiseul.

Throughout the morning of the 10th of May there was great confusion and
agitation at Versailles. The physicians declared that the king could not
live out the day; and the dauphin had decided on removing his household to
the smaller palace of La Muette at Choisy, to spend in that comparative
retirement the first week or two after his grandfather's death, during
which it would h