to rule, but that
all was not yet finished.

M. le Duc d'Orleans had passed into a cabinet, where I found him alone
with Canillac, who had waited for him. We took our measures there, and
M. le Duc d'Orleans sent for the Attorney-General, D'Aguesseau,
afterwards Chancellor, and the chief Advocate-General, Joly de Fleury,
since Attorney-General. It was nearly two o'clock. A little dinner was
served, of which Canillac, Conflans, M. le Duc d'Orleans, and myself
partook; and I will say this, by the way, I never dined with him but once
since, namely, at Bagnolet.

We returned to the Parliament a little before four o'clock. I arrived
there alone in my carriage, a moment before M. le Duc d'Orleans, and
found everybody assembled. I was looked at with much curiosity, as it
seemed to me. I am not aware if it was known whence I came. I took care
that my bearing should say nothing. I simply said to the Duc de la Force
that his advice had been salutary, that I had reason to hope all success
from it, and that I had told M. le Duc d'Orleans whence it came. That
Prince arrived, and (the hubbub inseparable from such a numerous suite
being appeased) he said that matters must be recommenced from the point
where they had been broken off in the morning; that it was his duty to
say to the Court that in nothing had he agreed with M. du Maine and to
bring again before all eyes the monstrous clauses of a codicil, drawn
from a dying prince; clauses much more strange than the dispositions of
the testament that the Court had not deemed fit to be put in execution,
and that the Court could not allow M. du Maine to be master of the person
of the King, of the camp, of Paris, consequently of the State, of the
person, life, and liberty of the Regent, whom he would be in a position
to arrest at any moment as soon as he became the absolute and independent
master of the civil and military household of the King; that the Court
saw what must inevitably result from an unheard-of novelty, which placed
everything in the hands of M. du Maine; and that he left it to the
enlightenment, to the prudence, to the wisdom, to the equity of the
company, and its love for the State, to declare what they thought on this
subject.

M. du Maine appeared then as contemptible in the broad open daylight as
he had appeared redoubtable in the obscurity of the cabinets. He had the
look of one condemned, and his face, generally so fresh-coloured, was now
as pale as death. He replie