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Updated: June 10, 2025
The Duke of Aiguillon, always hostile to the Choiseuls and the House of Austria, had lent his countenance to the murmurs; Marie Antoinette was annoyed, and, in her turn, fostered the distrust felt by the people towards the late ministers of Louis XV. In the place of the Duke of Aiguillon, who had the ministry of war and that of foreign affairs both together, the Count of Muy and the Count of Vergennes were called to power.
This princess had amiable qualities, solid virtues which made her loved and respected by the whole court; but she had but little will of her own, and allowed herself to be led by the Choiseuls; who, to flatter her, told her that she alone had inherited the energy of her grandfather, Louis XIV. She was advised to display it in this instance, and, she would willingly have done so.
You know how, as first president of the parliament of Paris, he succeeded his father as vice-chancellor. At the resignation of the titular M. de Lamoignon*, the elder Maupeou received his letters of nomination, and as soon as they were registered, he resigned in favor of his son. The Choiseuls had allowed the latter to be nominated, relying on finding him a creature.
May heaven preserve you, my friend, from the anger of a bigot! I think I have detained you long enough with the relation of the intrigues by which I was surrounded upon the dismissal of the des Choiseuls, and I will now return to the morning of the 24th of December. When the exiles were fairly out of Paris, the king found himself not a little embarrassed in the choice of a prime minister.
"Really what you tell me seems perfectly unaccountable. He has then burst from the hands of the Choiseuls? It is amusing. Poor Choiseul, when soliciting for Maupeou, he most tremendously deceived himself." "At least, sire, you must own that he has given you no fool." "True.
"M. du Barry," was his reply, "I shall render an account of my conduct to the king." "Very well, sir," I replied, "but do not suppose that either you or the Choiseuls can give me any cause of fear." M. de Sartines was thunderstruck; my boldness astonished him. At length he said, "Madame, you are angry with me causelessly; I am more negligent than culpable. It is useless to say this to the king."
I knew that she was no friend of mine, and that her lover sided with the Choiseuls against me; and was consequently the more delighted to see the little scoundrel come to receive the order for avenging me.
"You cannot conceal from yourself," he said, "how powerful will be the cabal against you; and, without including the Choiseuls, you will have especially to fear the pious party, who will only see in your intimacy with the king, allow me to say, a crying scandal, and one not profitable for religion."
I soon saw that the Choiseuls were mistaken. *In September, 1768. It was in the month of October, that Henriette, always my favorite, came to me with an air of unusual mystery, to say, that a black* and ugly gentleman wished to see me; that on the usual reply that I was not visible, he had insisted, and sent, at the same time, a cautiously sealed note. I took it, opened, and read these words:
He told the king every thing that came into his head: he told him one day, that the Choiseuls boasted that he, the king of France, never dared introduce his mistress into the state apartments at Versailles.
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