; and because, I
have drawn up the document in a manner to wound no one. What I am going
to explain to you, regards the Comte de Toulouse alone.

"Nobody is ignorant how he has disapproved all that has been done in
favour of him and his brother, and that he has sustained it since the
regency only out of respect for the wishes of the late King. Everybody
knows also his virtue, his merit, his application, his probity, his
disinterestedness. Nevertheless, I could not avoid including him in the
declaration you have just heard. Justice furnishes no exception in his
favour, and the rights of the Peers must be assured. Now that they are
no longer attacked, I have thought fitly to render to merit what from
equity I have taken from birth; and to make an exception of M. le Comte
de Toulouse, which (while confirming the rule), will leave him in full
possession of all the honours he enjoys to the exclusion of every other.
Those honours are not to pass to his children, should he marry and have
any, or their restitution be considered as a precedent to be made use of
at any future time.

"I have the pleasure to announce that the Princes of the Blood consent to
this, and that such of the Peers to whom I have been able to explain
myself, share my sentiments. I doubt not that the esteem he has acquired
here will render this proposition agreeable to you." And then turning to
the Keeper of the Seals, "Monsieur, will you read the declaration?"

It was read at once.

I had, during the discourse of his Royal Highness, thrown all my
attention into an examination of the impression it made upon the
assembly. The astonishment it caused was general; it was such, that to
judge of those addressed, it seemed that they understood nothing; and
they did not recover themselves during all the reading. I inwardly
rejoiced at success so pleasingly demonstrated and did not receive too
well the Duc de Guiche, who testified to me his disapprobation. Villeroy
confounded, Villars raging, Effiat rolling his eyes, Estrees beside
himself with surprise, were the most marked. Tallard, with his head
stretched forward, sucked in, so to speak, all the Regent's words as they
were proffered, and those of the declaration, as the Keeper of the Seals
read them. Noailles, inwardly distracted, could not hide his
distraction; Huxelles, entirely occupied in smoothing himself, forgot to
frown. I divided my attention between the declaration and these persons.

Th