reputation, and deserved
so well of it.

I replied therefore to these gentlemen that I thought the commission very
strange, and much more so their reasoning of it; that Torcy was not a man
from whom an office of this importance could be taken unless he wished to
give it up; that all I could do was to ask him if he wished to resign,
and if so, on what conditions; that as to exhorting him to resign, I
could do nothing of the kind, although I was not ignorant of what this
refusal might cost me and my embassy. They tried in vain to reason with
me; all they could obtain was this firm resolution.

Castries and his brother, the Archbishop, were intimate friends of Torcy
and of myself. I sent for them to come to me in the midst of the tumult
of my departure. They immediately came, and I related to them what had
just happened. They were more indignant at the manner and the moment,
than at the thing itself; for Torcy knew that sooner or later the
Cardinal would strip him of the post for his own benefit. They extremely
praised my reply, exhorted me to send word to Torcy, who was on the point
of departing from Sable, or had departed, and who would make his own
terms with M. le Duc d'Orleans much more advantageously, present, than
absent. I read to them the letter I had written to Torcy, while waiting
for them, which they much approved, and which I at once despatched.

Torcy of himself, had hastened his return. My courier found him with his
wife in the Parc of Versailles, having passed by the Chartres route. He
read my letter, charged the courier with many compliments for me (his
wife did likewise), and told me to say he would see me the next day. I
informed M. Castries of his arrival. We all four met the next day.
Torcy warmly appreciated my conduct, and, to his death, we lived on terms
of the greatest intimacy, as may be imagined when I say that he committed
to me his memoirs (these he did not write until long after the death of
M. le Duc d'Orleans), with which I have connected mine. He did not seem
to care for the post, if assured of an honourable pension.

I announced then his return to Dubois, saying it would be for him and M.
le Duc d'Orleans to make their own terms with him, and get out of the.
matter in this way. Dubois, content at seeing by this that Torcy
consented to resign the post, cared not how, so that the latter made his
own arrangements, and all passed off with the best grace on both sides.
Torcy had some money