e as offered these opinions and explanations as
impetuous counsellors, who hurried everything and suggested everything,
who wished to discount the future in order to satisfy their ambition,
their aversion, their different passions. He kept on his guard against
them; he applauded himself for not being their dupe. Now, he laughed at
them; often he allowed them to believe he appreciated their reasoning,
that he was going to act and rouse from his lethargy. He amused them
thus, gained time, and diverted himself afterwards with the others.
Sometimes he replied coldly to them, and when they pressed him too much
he allowed his suspicions to peep out.

Long since I had perceived M. le Duc d'Orleans' mode of action. At the
first movements of the Parliament, of the bastards, and of those who had
usurped the name of nobility, I had warned him. I had done so again as
soon as I saw the cadence and the harmony of the designs in progress. I
had pointed out to him their inevitable sequel; how easy it was to hinder
them at the commencement; how difficult after, especially for a person of
his character and disposition. But I was not the man for such work as
this. I was the oldest, the most attached, the freest spoken of all his
servitors; I had given him the best proofs of this in the most critical
times of his life, and in the midst of his universal abandonment; the
counsels I had offered him in these sad days he had always found for his
good; he was accustomed to repose in me the most complete confidence;
but, whatever opinion he might have of me, and of my truth and probity,
he was on his guard against what he called my warmth, and against the
love I had for my dignity, so attacked by the usurpations of the
bastards, the designs of the Parliament, and the modern fancies of a sham
nobility. As soon as I perceived his suspicions I told him so, and I
added that, content with having done my duty as citizen and as his
servitor, I would say no more on the subject. I kept my word. For more
than a year I had not of myself opened my mouth thereon. If he was
sometimes spoken to before me, and I could not keep quite silent without
being suspected of sulking or pique, I carelessly said something
indefinite, with as little meaning in it as possible, and calculated to
make us drop the subject.

Judge of my surprise, therefore, when as I was working as usual one
afternoon with the Regent, he interrupted me to speak with bitterness of
th