without reply, and half an
hour afterwards returned, to say that it was done. The king then said to
him,

"Do you know this lady?"

"No, sire."

"Well, I desire you henceforward to have the greatest consideration for
her as my best friend, and whoever wishes to prove his zeal for me, will
honor and cherish her."

The king then invited him to sup with us, and I am sure that during the
whole repast I was the hardest morsel he had to digest.

Some days afterwards I made acquaintance with a person much more
important than the little duke, and destined to play a great part in the
history of France. I mean M. de Maupeou, the late chancellor, who, in
his disgrace, would not resign his charge. M. de Maupeou possessed one
of those firm and superior minds, which, in spite of all obstacles,
change the face of empires. Ardent, yet cool; bold, but reflective; the
clamors of the populace did not astonish, nor did any obstacles arrest
him. He went on in the direct path which his will chalked out. Quitting
the magistracy, he became its most implacable enemy, and after a deadly
combat he came off conqueror. He felt that the moment had arrived for
freeing royalty from the chains which it had imposed on itself. It was
necessary, he has said to me a hundred times, for the kings of France
in past ages to have a popular power on which they could rely for the
overturning of the feudal power. This power they found in the high
magistracy; but since the reign of Louis XIII the mission of the
parliaments had finished, the nobility was reduced, and they became no
less formidable than the enemy whom they had aided in subduing.

"Before fifty years," pursued M. de Maupeou, "kings will be nothing in
France, and parliaments will be everything."

Talented, a good speaker, even eloquent, M. de Maupeou possessed
qualities which made the greatest enterprises successful. He was
convinced that all men have their price, and that it is only to find
out the sum at which they are purchasable.* As brave personally as a
marechal of France, his enemies (and he had many) called him a coarse
and quarrelsome man. Hated by all, he despised men in a body, and jeered
at them individually; but little sensible to the charms of our sex, he
only thought of us by freaks, and as a means of relaxation. This is M.
de Maupeou, painted to the life. As for his person, you know it as well
as I do. I have no need to tell you, that he was little, ugly, and his
complexion was