Monseigneur never visited him;
and, to the indignation of all Paris, passed along the quay near the
Louvre going to the Opera, whilst the sacraments were being carried to
the Prince on the other side. He was compelled by public opinion to make
a short visit after this. The Prince died at last in his arm-chair,
surrounded by a few worthy people. Regrets were universal; but perhaps
he gained by his disgrace. His heart was firmer than his head. He might
have been timid at the head of an army or in the Council of the King if
he had entered it. The King was much relieved by his death; Madame de
Maintenon also; M. le Duc much more; for M. du Maine it was a
deliverance, and for M. de Vendome a consolation. Monseigneur learned it
at Meudon as he was going out to hunt, and showed no feeling of any kind.

The death of M. le Prince de Conti seemed to the Duc de Vendome a
considerable advantage, because he was thus delivered from a rival most
embarrassing by the superiority of his birth, just when he was about to
be placed in a high military position. I have already mentioned
Vendome's exclusion from command. The fall of this Prince of the Proud
had been begun we have now reached the second step, between which and the
third there was a space of between two and three months; but as the third
had no connection with any other event, I will relate it at once.

Whatever reasons existed to induce the King to take from M. de Vendome
the command of his armies, I know not if all the art and credit of Madame
de Maintenon would not have been employed in vain, together with the
intrigues of M. du Maine, without an adventure, which I must at once
explain, to set before the reader's eyes the issue of the terrible
struggle, pushed to such extremes, between Vendome, seconded by his
formidable cabal, and the necessary, heir of the Crown, supported by his
wife, the favourite of the King, and Madame de Maintenon, which last; to
speak clearly, as all the Court saw, for thirty years governed him
completely.

When M. de Vendome returned from Flanders, he had a short interview with
the King, in which he made many bitter complaints against Pursegur, one
of his lieutenant-generals, whose sole offence was that he was much
attached to M. de Bourgogne. Pursegur was a great favourite with the
King, and often, on account of the business of the infantry regiment, of
which the thought himself the private colonel, had private interviews
with him, and