ran thought six thousand livres a year
too good to be lost, and asked for the post for her husband. She cared
so little for him, by the way, that she called him her "mastiff." It was
she, who, supping with M. le Duc d'Orleans and his roues, wittily said,
that princes and lackeys had been made of one material, separated by
Providence at the creation from that out of which all other men had been
made.

All the Regent's mistresses had one by one their turn. Fortunately they
had little power, were not initiated into any state secrets, and received
but little money.

The Regent amused himself with them, and treated them in other respects
exactly as they deserved to be treated.

CHAPTER XC

It is time now that I should speak of matters of very great importance,
which led to changes that filled my heart with excessive joy, such as it
had never known before.

For a long time past the Parliament had made many encroachments upon the
privileges belonging to the Dukes. Even under the late King it had begun
these impudent enterprises, and no word was said against it; for nothing
gave the King greater pleasure than to mix all ranks together in a
caldron of confusion. He hated and feared the nobility, was jealous of
their power, which in former reigns had often so successfully balanced
that of the crown; he was glad therefore of any opportunity which
presented itself that enabled him to see our order weakened and robbed of
its dignity.

The Parliament grew bolder as its encroachments one by one succeeded.
It began to fancy itself armed with powers of the highest kind. It began
to imagine that it possessed all the authority of the English Parliament,
forgetting that that assembly is charged with the legislative
administration of the country, that it has the right to make laws and
repeat laws, and that the monarch can do but little, comparatively
speaking, without the support and sanction of this representative
chamber; whereas, our own Parliament is but a tribunal of justice, with
no control or influence over the royal authority or state affairs.

But, as I have said, success gave it new impudence. Now that the King
was dead, at whose name alone it trembled, this assembly thought that a
fine opportunity had come to give its power the rein. It had to do with
a Regent, notorious for his easy-going disposition, his indifference to
form and rule, his dislike to all vigorous measures. It fancied that
victory over such an oppo