npleasant commission, as well as with the king's assurance of his
affection and esteem for Chamillard, and with the announcement of the
marks thereof he intended to bestow upon him. They entered Chamillard's
presence with such an air of consternation as may be easily imagined,
they having always been very great friends of his. By their manner the
unhappy minister saw at once that there was something extraordinary, and,
without giving them time to speak, 'What is the matter, gentlemen?' he
said with a calm and serene countenance. 'If what you have to say
concerns me only, you can speak out; I have been prepared a long while
for anything.' They could scarcely tell what brought them. Chamillard
heard them without changing a muscle, and with the same air and tone with
which he had put his first question, he answered, 'The king is master.
I have done my best to serve him; I hope another may do it more to his
satisfaction and more successfully. It is much to be able to count upon
his kindness and to receive so many marks of it.' Then he asked whether
he might write to him, and whether they would do him the favor of taking
charge of his letter. He wrote the king, with the same coolness, a page
and a half of thanks and regards, which he read out to them at once just
as he had at once written it in their presence. He handed it to the two
dukes, together with the memorandum which the king had asked him for in
the morning, and which he had just finished, sent word orally to his wife
to come after him to L'Etang, whither he was going, without telling her
why, sorted out his papers, and gave up his keys to be handed to his
successor. All this was done without the slightest excitement; without
a sigh, a regret, a reproach, a complaint escaping him, he went down his
staircase, got into his carriage, and started off to L'Etang, alone with
his son, just as if nothing had happened to him, without anybody's
knowing anything about it at Versailles until long afterwards."
[Memoires de St. Simon, t. iii. p. 233.]

Desmarets in the finance and Voysin in the war department, both
superintendents of finance, the former a nephew of Colbert's and
initiated into business by his uncle, both of them capable and assiduous,
succumbed, like their predecessors, beneath the weight of the burdens
which were overwhelming and ruining France. "I know the state of my
finances," Louis XIV. had said to Desmarets; "I do not ask you to do
impossibilitie