he presented me the handle and begged a thousand pardons.
He told this little story afterwards to the King, with whom he had great
freedom. His Majesty was pleased with it, and remembered both time and
place, as you will see hereafter.

The good reception I found at Court gave my relatives some grounds to
hope that I might have the coadjutorship of Paris. At first they found a
great deal of difficulty in my uncle's narrowness of spirit, which is
always attended with fears and jealousies; but at length they prevailed
upon him, and would have then carried our point, if my friends had not
given it out, much against my judgment, that it was done by the consent
of the Archbishop of Paris, and if they had not suffered the Sorbonne,
the cures, and chapter to return him their thanks. This affair made too
much noise in the world for my interest. For Cardinal Mazarin, De
Noyers, and De Chavigni thwarted me, and told his Majesty that the
chapter should not be entrusted with the power of nominating their own
archbishop. And the King was heard to say that I was yet too young.

But we met with a worse obstacle than all from M. de Noyers, Secretary of
State, one of the three favourite ministers, who passed for a religious
man, and was suspected by some to be a Jesuit in disguise. He had a
secret longing for the archbishopric of Paris, which would shortly be
vacant, and therefore thought it expedient to remove me from that city,
where he saw I was extremely beloved, and provide me with some post
suitable to my years. He proposed to the King by his confessor to
nominate me Bishop of Agde. The King readily granted the request, which
confounded me beyond all expression. I had no mind to go to Languedoc,
and yet so great are the inconveniences of a refusal that not a man had
courage to advise me to it. I became, therefore, my own counsellor, and
having resolved with myself what course to take, I waited upon his
Majesty, and thanked him for his gracious offer, but said I dreaded the
weight of so remote a see, and that my years wanted advice, which it is
difficult to obtain in provinces so distant. I added to this other
arguments, which you may guess at. I was in this adventure also more
happy than wise. The King continued to treat me very kindly. This
circumstance, and the retreat of M. de Noyers, who fell into the snare
that Chavigni had laid for him, renewed my hopes of the coadjutorship of
Paris. The King died about this