eyond the bounds of modest respect,
and, finding that my submission made no impression upon the Cardinal, I
got the Bishop of Arles, a wise and moderate gentleman, to go to him
along with me, and to join with me in offering our reasons. But we found
his Eminence a very ignoramus in ecclesiastical polity. I only mention
this to let you see that in my first misunderstanding with the Court I
was not to blame, and that my respect for the Cardinal upon the Queen's
account was carried to an excess of patience.

Some months after, his profound ignorance and envenomed malice furnished
me with a fresh occasion to exercise patience. The Bishop of Warmia, one
of the ambassadors that came to fetch the Queen of Poland, was very
desirous to celebrate the marriage in the Church of Notre-Dame. Though
the archbishops of Paris never suffered solemnities of this kind to be
celebrated in their churches by any but cardinals of the royal family,
and though my uncle had been highly blamed by all his clergy for
permitting the Cardinal de La Rochefoucault to marry the Queen of
England,--[Henriette Marie of France, daughter of Henri IV., died
1669.]--nevertheless I was ordered by a 'lettre de cachet' to prepare the
said Church of Notre Dame for the Bishop of Warmia, which order ran in
the same style as that given to the 'prevot des marchands' when he is to
prepare the Hotel de Ville for a public ball. I showed the letter to the
deans and canons, and said I did not doubt but it was a stratagem of one
or other of the Secretary of State's clerks to get a gift of money.

I thereupon went to the Cardinal, pressed him with both reasons and
precedents, and said that, as I was his particular humble servant, I
hoped he would be pleased to lay them before her Majesty, making use of
all other persuasion--which I thought would dispose him to a compliance.
It was then that I learned that he only wanted an opportunity to embroil
me with the Queen, for though I saw plainly that he was sorry he had
given such orders before he knew their consequence, yet, after some
pause, he reassumed his former obstinacy to the very last degree; and,
because I spoke in the name of the Archbishop and of the whole Church of
Paris, he stormed as much as if a private person upon his own authority
had presumed to make a speech to him at the head of fifty malcontents. I
endeavoured with all respect to show him that our case was quite
different; but he was so ignorant of our man