Read
the trial,' said he. 'It was the language of those gentlemen
he names which turned his head.' 'But,' said Madame, 'I have
often thought that, if the Archbishop could be sent to Rome--'
'Find anybody who will accomplish that business, and I will give
him whatever he pleases.'" Quesnay said the King was right in
all he had uttered. The Archbishop was exiled shortly after,
and the King was seriously afflicted at being driven to take
such a step. "What a pity," he often said, "that so excellent
a man should be so obstinate." "And so shallow," said somebody,
one day. "Hold your tongue," replied the King, somewhat sternly.
The Archbishop was very charitable, and liberal to excess, but
he often granted pensions without discernment. He granted one of
an hundred louis to a pretty woman, who was very poor, and who
assumed an illustrious name, to which she had no right. The fear
lest she should be plunged into vice led him to bestow such excessive
bounty upon her; and the woman was an admirable dissembler. She
went to the Archbishop's, covered with a great hood, and, when
she left him, she amused herself with a variety of lovers.

Great people have the bad habit of talking very indiscreetly before
their servants. M. de Gontaut once said these words covertly, as he
thought, to the Duc de ----, "That measures had been taken which
would, probably, have the effect of determining the Archbishop to
go to Rome, with a Cardinal's hat; and that, if he desired it,
he was to have a coadjutor."

A very plausible pretext had been found for making this proposition,
and for rendering it flattering to the Archbishop, and agreeable
to his sentiments. The affair had been very adroitly begun, and
success appeared certain. The King had the air, towards the
Archbishop, of entire unconsciousness of what was going on. The
negotiator acted as if he were only following the suggestions
of his own mind, for the general good. He was a friend of the
Archbishop, and was very sure of a liberal reward. A valet of
the Duc de Gontaut, a very handsome young fellow, had perfectly
caught the sense of what was spoken in a mysterious manner. He
was one of the lovers of the lady of the hundred louis a year,
and had heard her talk of the Archbishop, whose relation she
pretended to be. He thought he should secure her good graces
by informing her that great efforts were being made to induce
her patron to reside at Rome, with a view to get him away from
Paris. The