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The Admiral, Teligny, La Rochefoucalt, De Guerchy, all are dead; Henry of Navarre and Condé are both prisoners, and may be put to death at any moment; your particular friend, Bellièvre, is slain I would have saved him for your sake, but was too late. Now, if you stay in Paris, one of two things will happen.
Teligny and De Guerchy were in the sick-room, and with them Paré, the surgeon, and the Admiral's chaplain, Pastor Merlin; Carnaton and La Bonne dozed in the ante-chamber, while Yolet was posting the five Switzers who formed part of Navarre's bodyguard. "It seems as if we shall have a quiet night, Yolet," I remarked. "The danger has blown over," he answered.
Whatever the faults and weaknesses of the Rockingham administration of 1765-66 and they were many their moral courage in proposing and carrying through the repeal of the Stamp Act ought to stand weightily to their credit. The king was well known to be vehemently averse to the slightest tampering with the act; and it is difficult for any body of statesmen, even where which here was anything but the case public opinion unanimously admits that a false step has been taken, to face the obloquy and sneers sure to attend upon any proposal to retrace it. However, the repealing measure was proposed and carried, Shelburne supporting the ministers with all his might, though, doubting as he did even the abstract right of England to tax her colonies, he with only four other peers divided the House against them on the question of the well-known declaratory resolution. Sic vos non vobis. Though the Rockingham administration repealed the Stamp Act, it was the popular belief that Pitt had been the real moving cause in the matter. Pitt, and none other, was demanded by the national voice. The king reluctantly yielded. Pitt marched into the royal closet with words of profoundest deference upon his tongue and the stern triumph of a conqueror in his heart, and proceeded to form an administration in which there was not even the offer of a place for Rockingham. For Shelburne, on the other hand, he immediately sent, and offered him the seals of secretary of state. Such an appointment must have been a bitter pill indeed to George III., but Pitt stood firm, and the king had to swallow his dislike as best he might. What Choiseul, the French minister, thought of the new arrangement appears from an interesting letter from him to Guerchy in London, which Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice quotes from a copy at Lansdowne House. His conclusion is: "Alors le ministère d'Angleterre aura une certaine consistance; sans cela, avec l'opposition de my Lord Temple, l'ineptie de M. Conway, la jeunesse et peut-être l'étourderie de my Lord Shelburne quoique gouverné par M. Pitt, il ne sera pas plus fort qu'il ne l'étoit ci-devant. My Lord Chatham
In the intervals of grumbling every one was making love. M. de Juvizy actually was presumptuous enough to make love to the Queen, or to boast that he did. Mademoiselle, I am sorry to say, was in love, or, more truly, in ambition with the Prince of Conde; M. de S. Maigrin was said to be in love with the Princess, M. de Chatillon with Mademoiselle de Guerchy, and so on.
I am about to send him to Saint Jean d'Angely, and to Cognac," adding, with a laugh, "'tis a far less distance than to Tanlay." "But the commission is almost as important," said De Guerchy. "Much less dangerous though," and, turning to me, he added: "Can you carry a letter to the commandant at Cognac?" "I will do my best, my lord."
The King granted a 'noli prosequi' in favor of Monsieur de Guerchy; and the Attorney-General is actually prosecuting du Vergy. Whether the King can grant a 'noli prosequi' in a criminal case, and whether 'le droit des gens' extends to criminal cases, are two points which employ our domestic politicians, and the whole Corps Diplomatique.
Resuming afterwards his military dress, he served with honour and was wounded. Appointed chief secretary of legation, and afterwards minister plenipotentiary at London, he unpardonably insulted Comte de Guerchy, the ambassador.
As for de Guerchy, he resigned , and presently died of sheer annoyance, while his enemy, the Chevalier, stayed in England as London correspondent of Louis XV. He reported, in 1766, that Lord Bute was a Jacobite, and de Broglie actually took seriously the chance of restoring, by Bute's aid, Charles III., who had just succeeded, by the death of the Old Chevalier, to 'a kingdom not of this world.
Madame de Guerchy is all goodness to me; but that is not new. I have already been prevented by great civilities from Madame de Brentheim and my old friend Madame de Mirepoix; but am not likely to see the latter much, who is grown a most particular favourite of the King, and seldom from him. The Dauphin is ill, and thought in a very bad way. I hope he will live, lest the theatres should be shut up.
He was at odds with the future ambassador, de Guerchy, and with the minister, de Praslin; and would not have been promoted at all, had it been known to the minister that he was in correspondence with, and was taking orders from, the disgraced Comte de Broglie. But, by the fatuous system of the King, d'Éon, in fact, was doing nothing else.
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