aintenon, who never rested until she had foiled the whole scheme and
disgraced Chamillart, for having concealed the preparations from her.

[Footnote 145: In a previous campaign the king had taken his queen and
two mistresses with him in one coach. The peasants used to amuse
themselves by coming to see the "three queens."]

Versailles had now grown so accustomed to defeats that Malplaquet was
hailed as half a victory; but, in 1710, so desperate was the condition
of the treasury, that a financial and social _debacle_ was imminent.
The Dauphin, on leaving the opera at Paris, had been assailed by
crowds of women shouting, "Bread! bread!" and only escaped by throwing
them money and promises. To appease the people, the poor were set to
level the boulevard near St. Denis, and were paid in doles of
bread--bad bread. Even this failed them one morning, and a woman who
made some disturbance was dragged to the pillory by the archers of the
watch. An angry mob released her, and proceeded to raid the bakers'
shops. The ugly situation was saved only by the firmness and sagacity
of the popular Marshal Boufflers. Another turn of the financial screw
was now meditated, and, as the taxes had already "drawn all the blood
from his subjects, and squeezed out their very marrow," the conscience
of the lord of France was troubled. His Jesuit confessor, Le Tellier,
promised to consult the Sorbonne, whose learned doctors decided that,
since all the wealth of his subjects rightly belonged to the king, he
only took what was his own.

Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the quarrel between
Jansenists and Jesuits concerning subtle doctrinal differences had
grown acute through the publication of Pascal's immortal _Lettres
Provinciales_, and by Quesnel's _Reflexions Morales_ which the Jesuits
had succeeded in subjecting to papal condemnation. In 1709, Le Tellier
induced his royal penitent to decree the destruction of one of the
two Jansenist establishments, and Port Royal des Champs, between
Versailles and Chevreuse, rendered famous by the piety and learning of
Arnault, Pascal and Nicolle, was doomed. On the night of 28th October
1709, the convent was surrounded by Gardes Francaises and Suisses, and
on the following morning the chief of the police, with a posse of
archers of the watch entered, produced a _lettre de cachet_, and gave
the nuns a quarter of an hour to prepare for deportation. The whole of
the sisters were then brutally expelled,