of all
sorts of things, which it had not been possible to get in for the
continual rains; the poor farmer was watching for a dry moment to get
them in; meanwhile all the district was beaten with many a scourge. The
peasants had been sent off to prepare the roads by which the queen was to
pass, and they were only the worse for it, insomuch that Her Majesty was
often within a thought of drowning; they pulled her from her carriage by
the strong arm, as best they might. In several stopping-places she and
her suite were swimming in water which spread everywhere, and that in
spite of the unparalleled pains that had been taken by a tyrannical
ministry."

It was under such sad auspices that Mary Leckzinska arrived at
Versailles. Fleury had made no objection to the marriage. Louis XV.
accepted it, just as he had allowed the breaking-off of his union with
the Infanta and that of France with Spain. For a while the duke had
hopes of reaping all the fruit of the unequal marriage he had just
concluded for the King of France. The queen was devoted to him; he
enlisted her in an intrigue against Fleury. The king was engaged with
his old preceptor; the queen sent for him; he did not return. Fleury
waited a long while. The duke and Paris-Duverney had been found with the
queen; they had papers before them; the king had set to work with them.
When he went back, at length, to his closet, Louis XV. found the bishop
no longer there; search was made for him; he was no longer in the palace.

The king was sorry and put out; the Duke of Mortemart, who was his
gentleman of the bed-chamber, handed him a letter from Fleury. The
latter had retired to Issy, to the countryhouse of the Sulpicians; he
bade the king farewell, assuring him that he had for a long while been
resolved, according to the usage of his youth, to put some space between
the world and death. Louis began to shed tears; Mortemart proposed to go
and fetch Fleury, and got the order given him to do so. The duke had to
write the letter of recall. Next morning the bishop was at Versailles,
gentle and modest as ever, and exhibiting neither resentment nor
surprise. Six months later, however, the king set out from Versailles to
go and visit the Count and Countess of Toulouse at Rambouillet. The duke
was in attendance at his departure. "Do not make us wait supper,
cousin," said the young monarch, graciously. Scarcely had his equipages
disappeared, when a letter was brought: t