low."--"Well, the Dauphin is virtuous."--"Yes; and full of good
intentions; nor is he deficient in understanding; but canting hypocrites
would possess an absolute empire over a Prince who regards them as
oracles. The Jesuits would govern the kingdom, as they did at the end of
Louis XIV.'s reign: and you would see the fanatical Bishop of Verdun
Prime Minister, and La Vauguyon all-powerful under some other title. The
Parliaments must then mind how they behave; they will not be better
treated than my friends the philosophers."--"But they go too far," said
Mirabeau; "why openly attack religion?"--"I allow that," replied the
Doctor; "but how is it possible not to be rendered indignant by the
fanaticism of others, and by recollecting all the blood that has flowed
during the last two hundred years? You must not then again irritate
them, and revive in France the time of Mary in England. But what is done
is done, and I often exhort them to be moderate; I wish they would follow
the example of our friend Duclos."--"You are right," replied Mirabeau;
"he said to me a few days ago, 'These philosophers are going on at such a
rate that they will force me to go to vespers and high mass;' but, in
fine, the Dauphin is virtuous, well-informed, and intellectual."--"It is
the commencement of his reign, I fear," said Quesnay, "when the imprudent
proceedings of our friends will be represented to him in the most
unfavourable point of view; when the Jansenists and Molinists will make
common cause, and be strongly supported by the Dauphine. I thought that
M. de Muy was moderate, and that he would temper the headlong fury of the
others; but I heard him say that Voltaire merited condign punishment. Be
assured, sir, that the times of John Huss and Jerome of Prague will
return; but I hope not to live to see it. I approve of Voltaire having
hunted down the Pompignans: were it not for the ridicule with which he
covered them, that bourgeois Marquis would have been preceptor to the
young Princes, and, aided by his brother, would have succeeded in again
lighting the faggots of persecution."--"What ought to give you confidence
in the Dauphin," said Mirabeau, "is, that, notwithstanding the devotion
of Pompignan, he turns him into ridicule. A short time back, seeing him
strutting about with an air of inflated pride, he said to a person, who
told it to me, 'Our friend Pompignan thinks that he is something.'" On
returning home, I wrote down this conversatio