ting out of his head. Seeing me alone, he screamed rather
than asked, "Where is M. le Duc d'Orleans?" I replied that he had gone
into his wardrobe, and seeing him so overturned, I asked him what was the
matter.

"I am lost, I am lost!" he replied, running to the wardrobe. His reply
was so loud and so sharp that M. le Duc d'Orleans, who heard it, also ran
forward, so that they met each other in the doorway. They returned
towards me, and the Regent asked what was the matter.

Dubois, who always stammered, could scarcely speak, so great was his rage
and fear; but he succeeded at last in acquainting us with the details I
have just given, although at greater length. He concluded by saying that
after the insults he had received so treacherously, and in a manner so
basely premeditated, the Regent must choose between him and the Marechal
de Villeroy, for that after what had passed he could not transact any
business or remain at the Court in safety and honour, while the Marechal
de Villeroy remained there!

I cannot express the astonishment into which M. le Duc d'Orleans and I
were thrown. We could not believe what we had heard, but fancied we were
dreaming. M. le Duc d'Orleans put several questions to Dubois, I took
the liberty to do the same, in order to sift the affair to the bottom.
But there was no variation in the replies of the Cardinal, furious as he
was. Every moment he presented the same option to the Regent; every
moment he proposed that the Cardinal de Bissy should be sent for as
having witnessed everything. It may be imagined that this second scene,
which I would gladly have escaped, was tolerably exciting.

The Cardinal still insisting that the Regent must choose which of the two
be sent away, M. le Duc d'Orleans asked me what I thought. I replied
that I was so bewildered and so moved by this astounding occurrence that
I must collect myself before speaking. The Cardinal, without addressing
himself to me but to M. le Duc d'Orleans, who he saw was plunged Memoirs
in embarrassment, strongly insisted that he must come to some resolution.
Upon this M. le Duc d'Orleans beckoned me over, and I said to him that
hitherto I had always regarded the dismissal of the Marechal de Villeroy
as a very dangerous enterprise, for reasons I had several times alleged
to his Royal Highness: but that now whatever peril there might be in
undertaking it, the frightful scene that had just been enacted persuaded
me that it would