I now return to my conversation with him. During the time it lasted the king did not cease talking to Chon, all the time listening with attention to what the prince and I were saying; and he did not approach us until the intervention of M. de Chauvelin had terminated this kind of a quarrel. He returned to his seat in front of the fire; and when we were alone, said to me,"You have been very spiteful to the poor marechal, and I suffered for him.""You are an excellent friend; and, no doubt, it is the affection you bear to M. de Soubise which makes you behave so harshly to me.
Can I not, without displeasing you, defend myself when I am attacked?""I did not say so; but is it necessary that he must be responsible for the follies of his relations?""In truth, sire, so much the worse for the father who cannot make his children respect him. If the marechal was respected by the public, believe me he would be so by his family."This retort was perhaps too severe. I found this by the silence of the king; but as, in fact, it imported little, and, by God's help, I was never under much constraint with him, I saw him blush, and then he said to me,"Now, I undertake to bring madame de Guemenee into proper order.
The favor I ask is, that you would not meddle. I have power enough to satisfy you, but, for heaven's sake, do not enter into more quarrels than you have already. It seems to me that you ought to avoid them instead of creating such disturbances."He had assumed a grave tone in reading me this lecture: but as we were in a place in which majesty could not be committed, I began to laugh heartily, and to startle him, I said that henceforward Iwould pilot my bark myself, and defend myself by openly assailing all persons who testified an aversion to me. How laughable it was to see the comic despair in which this determination threw the king. It seemed to him that the whole court would be at loggerheads;and he could not restrain himself from exclaiming, that he would a hundred times rather struggle against the king of Prussia and the emperor of Germany united, than against three or four females of the chateau. In a word, I frightened him so completely, that he decided on the greatest act of courage he had ever essayed in my favor: it was, to desire the intervention of the duc de Choiseul in all these quarrels.
The credit of this minister was immense, and this credit was based on four powerful auxiliaries; namely the parliament, the philosophers, the <literati>, and the women. The high magistracy found in him a public and private protector. The parliaments had themselves a great many clients, and their voices, given to the duc de Choiseul, gave him great power in the different provinces. The philosophers, ranged under the banner of Voltaire, who was their god, and of d'Alembert, their patriarch, knew all his inclinations for them, and knew how far they might rely on his support in all attempts which they made to weaken the power of the clergy, and to diminish the gigantic riches which had been amassed by prelates and monasteries.
The writers were equally devoted to him: they progressed with the age, and as on all sides they essayed to effect important reforms, it was natural that they should rally about him in whose hands was the power of their operations.
The ladies admired his gallantry: in fact, the duc de Choiseul was a man who understood marvellously well how to combine serious labors with pleasure. I was, perhaps, the only woman of the court whom he would not love, and yet I was not the least agreeable nor the most ugly. It was very natural for them to exalt his merit and take him under their especial protection. Thus was he supported in every quarter by them; they boasted of his measures, and by dint of repeating in the ears of every body that M. de Choiseul was a minister <par excellence>, and the support of monarchy, they had contrived to persuade themselves of the truth of their assertion. In fact, if France found herself freed from the Jesuits, it was to the duc de Choiseul that this was owing, and this paramount benefit assured to him universal gratitude.
The king was fully aware of this unanimity of public opinion in favor of his minister. He was, besides, persuaded, that in arranging the <pacte de famille>, and concluding the alliance with the imperial house, the duc de Choiseul had evinced admirable diplomatic talents, and rendered France real, and important, service.
His attachment to him was incumbent, and rested on solid foundations. If, at a subsequent period, he dismissed him, it was because he was deceived by a shameful intrigue which it will cost me pain to develop to you, because I took by far too much a leading part in it, which now causes me the deepest regret.
Now, by the act of my presentation, the duc de Choiseul would be compelled to meet me often, which would render our mutual situation very disagreeable. On this account the king sought to reconcile us, and would have had no difficulty in effecting his wishes had he only had the resistance of the minister and his wife to encounter. The lady had not much influence over her husband, and besides she had too much good sense to struggle against the wishes of the king: but the duchesse de Grammont was there, and this haughty and imperious dame had so great an ascendancy with her brother, and behaved with so little caution, that the most odious reports were in circulation about their intimacy.
It could scarcely be hoped that we could tame this towering spirit, which saw in me an odious rival. Louis XV did not flatter himself that he could effect this prodigy, but he hoped to have a greater ascendancy over his minister. It was to the duc de Choiseul, therefore, that he first addressed himself, desirous of securing the husband and wife before he attacked the redoubtable sister.
