away; but the conspirators were too scatter-brained to take the trouble.
The duchess was removed to Dijon, within the government, and into the
very house of the Duke of Bourbon, her nephew, which was a very bitter
pill for her. The Duke of Maine, who protested his innocence and his
ignorance, was detained in the Castle of Dourlans in Picardy. Cellamare
received his passports and quitted France. The less illustrious
conspirators were all put in the Bastille; the majority did not remain
there long, and purchased their liberty by confessions, which the Duchess
of Maine ended by confirming. "Do not leave Paris until you are driven
thereto by force," Alberoni had written to the Prince of Cellamare, "and
do not start before you have fired all the mines." Cellamare started,
and the mines did not burst after his withdrawal; conspiracy and
conspirators were covered with ridicule; the natural clemency of the
Regent had been useful; the part of the Duke and Duchess of Maine was
played out.

The only serious result of Cellamare's conspiracy was to render imminent
a rupture with Spain. From the first days of the regency the old enmity
of Philip V. towards the Duke of Orleans and the secret pretensions of
both of them to the crown of France, in case of little Louis XV.'s death,
rendered the relations between the two courts thorny and strained at
bottom, though still perfectly smooth in appearance. It was from England
that Abbe Dubois urged the Regent to seek support. Dubois, born in the
very lowest position, and endowed with a soul worthy of his origin, was
"a little, lean man, wire-drawn, with a light colored wig, the look of a
weasel, a clever expression," says St. Simon, who detested him; "all
vices struggled within him for the mastery; they kept up a constant
hubbub and strife together. Avarice, debauchery, ambition, were his
gods; perfidy, flattery, slavishness, his instruments; and complete
unbelief his comfort. He excelled in low intrigues; the boldest lie was
second nature to him, with an air of simplicity, straightforwardness,
sincerity, and often bashfulness." In spite of all these vices, and the
depraving influence he had exercised over the Duke of Orleans from his
earliest youth, Dubois was able, often far-sighted, and sometimes bold;
he had a correct and tolerably practical mind. Madame, who was afraid of
him, had said to her son on the day of his elevation to power, "I desire
only the welfare of the state a