s ease, and yet I think the people
do not now intend to pursue him any farther, for they have begun to make
all kinds of songs about him.
Law is said to be in such an agony of fear that he has not been able to
venture to my son's at Saint Cloud, although he sent a carriage to fetch
him. He is a dead man; he is as pale as a sheet, and it is said can
never get over his last panic. The people's hatred of the Duke arises
from his being the friend of Law, whose children he carried to Saint
Maur, where they are to remain.
M. Boursel, passing through the Rue Saint Antoine in his way from the
Jesuits' College, had his carriage stopped by a hackney coachman, who
would neither come on nor go back. M. Boursel's footman, enraged at his
obstinacy, struck the coachman, and, M. Boursel getting out of his coach
to restrain his servant's rage, the coachman resolved to be avenged of
both master and man, and so began to cry out, "Here is Law going to kill
me; fall upon him."
The people immediately ran with staves and stones, and attacked Boursel,
who took refuge in the church of the Jesuits. He was pursued even to the
altar, where he found a little door opened which led into the convent.
He rushed through and shut it after him, by which means he saved his
life.
M. de Chiverni, the tutor of the Duc de Chartres, was going into the
Palais Royal in a chair, when a child about eight years old cried out,
"There goes Law!" and the people immediately assembled. M. Chiverni, who
is a little, meagre-faced, ugly old man, said pleasantly enough, "I knew
very well I had nothing to fear when I should show them my face and
figure."
As soon as they saw him they suffered him to get quietly into his chair
and to enter the gates of the palace.
On the 10th of December (1720), Law withdrew; he is now at one of his
estates about six miles from Paris. The Duke, who wished to visit him,
thought proper to take Mdlle. de Prie's post-chaise, and put his footman
into a grey livery, otherwise the people would have known and have
maltreated him.
Law is gone to Brussels; Madame de Prie lent him her chaise. When he
returned it, he wrote thanking her, and at the same time sent her a ring
worth 100,000 livres. The Duke provided him with relays, and made four
of his own people accompany him. When he took leave of my son, Law said
to him, "Monsieur, I have committed several great faults, but they are
merely such as are incident to humanity; you will
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