the new
favourite; and the relatives of Choiseul insisted upon it, that he
should resign rather than consent to the presentation. Choiseul
resisted, yielded, was insulted for his resistance, and was scoffed at
for his submission. He finally retired, and was ridiculed for his
retirement. Du Barri triumphed. Epigrams and _calembours_ blazed
through Paris. Every one was a wit for the time, and every wit was a
rebel. The infidel faction looked on at the general dissolution of
morals with delight, as the omen of general overthrow. The Jesuits
rejoiced in the hope of getting the old King into their hands, and
terrifying him, if not into a proselyte, at least into a tool. Even Du
Barri herself was probably not beyond their hopes; for the established
career of a King's mistress was, to turn _devote_ on the decay of her
personal attractions.

Among Choiseul's intentions was that of making war on England. There
was not the slightest ground for a war. But it is a part of the
etiquette of a Frenchman's life, that he must be a warrior, or must
promote a war, or must dream of a war. M. Guizot is the solitary
exception in our age, as M. Fleury was the solitary exception in the
last; but Fleury was an ecclesiastic, and was eighty years old
besides--two strong disqualifications for a conqueror. But the King
was then growing old, too; his belligerent propensities were absorbed
in quarrels with his provincial parliaments; his administrative
faculties found sufficient employment in managing the morals of his
mistresses; his private hours were occupied in pelting Du Barri with
sugar-plums; and thus his days wore away without that supreme glory of
the old _regime_--a general war in Europe.

The calamities of the French noblesse at the period of the Revolution,
excited universal regret; and the sight of so many persons, of
graceful manners and high birth, flung into the very depths of
destitution in foreign lands, or destroyed by the guillotine at home,
justified the sympathy of mankind. But, the secret history of that
noblesse was a fearful stigma, not only on France, but on human
nature. Vice may have existed to a high degree of criminality in other
lands; but in no other country of Europe, or the earth, ever was vice
so public, so ostentatiously forced upon the eyes of man, so
completely formed into an established and essential portion of
fashionable and courtly life. It was even the _etiquette_, that the
King of France should have a _