the auspices of his successor.

Immediately that the prince de Conde was informed of what had passed, he
recommenced his attack; and finding he could not be minister himself, he
determined, at least, to be principally concerned in the appointment
of one; he therefore proposed the marquis de Monteynard, a man of such
negative qualities, that the best that could be said of him was, that
he was as incapable of a bad as of a good action; and, for want of a
better, he was elected. Such were the colleagues given to M. de
Maupeou to conduct the war which was about to be declared against the
parliaments. I should tell you, _en passant_, that the discontent of the
magistracy had only increased, and that the parliament of Paris had even
finished by refusing to decide the suits which were referred to them;
thus punishing the poor litigants for their quarrel with the minister.

Meanwhile, the general interest expressed for the duc de Choiseul
greatly irritated the king.

"Who would have thought," said he to me, "that a disgraced minister
could have been so idolized by a whole court? Would you believe that I
receive a hundred petitions a day for leave to visit at Chanteloup? This
is something new indeed! I cannot understand it."

"Sire," replied I, "that only proves how much danger you incurred by
keeping such a man in your employment."

"Why, yes," answered Louis XV; "it really seem as though, had he chosen
some fine morning to propose my abdicating the throne in favour of the
dauphin, he would only have needed to utter the suggestion to have it
carried into execution. Fortunately for me, my grandson is by no means
partial to him, and will most certainly never recall him after my
death. The dauphin possesses all the obstinacy of persons of confined
understanding: he has but slender judgment, and will see with no eye but
his own."

Louis XV augured ill of his successor's reign, and imagined that the
cabinet of Vienna would direct that of Versailles at pleasure. His late
majesty was mistaken; Louis XVI is endowed with many rare virtues,
but they are unfortunately clouded over by his timidity and want of
self-confidence.

The open and undisguised censure passed by the whole court upon the
conduct of Louis XV was not the only thing which annoyed his majesty,
who perpetually tormented himself with conjectures of what the rest of
Europe would say and think of his late determinations.

"I will engage," said he, "that I am finely