art of the
park, he said, "This is where the Abbe took his pleasure." The King
never liked him; and Madame de Pompadour told me one night, after his
disgrace, when I was sitting up with her in her illness, that she saw,
before he had been Minister a week, that he was not fit for his office.
"If that hypocritical Bishop," said she, speaking of the Bishop of
Mirepoix, "had not prevented the King from granting him a pension of four
hundred louis a year, which he had promised me, he would never have been
appointed Ambassador. I should, afterwards, have been able to give him
an income of eight hundred louis a year, perhaps the place of master of
the chapel. Thus he would have been happier, and I should have had
nothing to regret." I took the liberty of saying that I did not agree
with her. That he had yet remaining advantages, of which he could not be
deprived; that his exile would terminate; and that he would then be a
Cardinal, with an income of eight thousand louis a year. "That is true,"
she replied; "but I think of the mortifications he has undergone, and of
the ambition which devours him; and, lastly, I think of myself. I should
have still enjoyed his society, and should have had, in my declining
years, an old and amiable friend, if he had not been Minister." The King
sent him away in anger, and was strongly inclined to refuse him the hat.
M. Quesnay told me, some months afterwards, that the Abbe wanted to be
Prime Minister; that he had drawn up a memorial, setting forth that in
difficult crises the public good required that there should be a central
point (that was his expression), towards which everything should be
directed. Madame de Pompadour would not present the memorial; he
insisted, though she said to him, "You will rain yourself." The King
cast his eyes over it, and said "'central point,'--that is to say
himself, he wants to be Prime Minister." Madame tried to apologize for
him, and said, "That expression might refer to the Marechal de
Belle-Isle."--"Is he not just about to be made Cardinal?" said the King.
"This is a fine manoeuvre; he knows well enough that, by means of that
dignity, he would compel the Ministers to assemble at his house, and then
M. l'Abbe would be the central point. Wherever there is a Cardinal in
the council, he is sure, in the end, to take the lead. Louis XIV., for
this reason, did not choose to admit the Cardinal de Janson into the
council, in spite of his great esteem for hi