ty. In fact, he was with her when she burnt the correspondence of
the Cardinal, in the interval the Court foolishly allowed between his
arrest and her capture, and De Beugnot believed he had met at her house,
at the moment of their return from their successful trick, the whole party
engaged in deluding the Cardinal. It is worth noting that he was then
struck by the face of Mademoiselle d'Oliva, who had just personated the
Queen in presenting a rose to the Cardinal. It may also be cited as a
pleasing quality of Madame de Lamotte that she, "in her ordinary
conversation, used the words stupid and honest as synonymous."--See
"Beugnot," vol. i., p. 60.]

CHAPTER XIV.

The Abbe de Vermond could not repress his exultation when he succeeded in
getting the Archbishop of Sens appointed head of the council of finance. I
have more than once heard him say that seventeen years of patience were
not too long a term for success in a Court; that he spent all that time in
gaining the end he had in view; but that at length the Archbishop was
where he ought to be for the good of the State. The Abbe, from this time,
in the Queen's private circle no longer concealed his credit and
influence; nothing could equal the confidence with which he displayed the
extent of his pretensions. He requested the Queen to order that the
apartments appropriated to him should be enlarged, telling her that, being
obliged to give audiences to bishops, cardinals, and ministers, he
required a residence suitable to his present circumstances. The Queen
continued to treat him as she did before the Archbishop's arrival at
Court; but the household showed him increased consideration: the word
"Monsieur" preceded that of Abbe; and from that moment not only the livery
servants, but also the people of the antechambers rose when Monsieur
l'Abbe was passing, though there never was, to my knowledge, any order
given to that effect.

The Queen was obliged, on account of the King's disposition and the very
limited confidence he placed in the Archbishop of Sens, to take a part in
public affairs. While M. de Maurepas lived she kept out of that danger,
as may be seen by the censure which the Baron de Besenval passes on her in
his memoirs for not availing herself of the conciliation he had promoted
between the Queen and that minister, who counteracted the ascendency which
the Queen and her intimate friends might otherwise have gained over the
King's mind.

The Quee