United States or Lebanon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
An incessant underhand war was carried on between the friends and partisans of M. de Choiseul, who were called the Austrians, and those who sided with Messieurs d'Aiguillon, de Maurepas, and de Vergennes, who, for the same reason, kept up the intrigues carried on at Court and in Paris against the Queen.
It was decided that I should be of the party, taking the name of the baroness de Pamklek, a German lady, as that would save me from the embarrassment in which I should be placed with the king in consequence of my non-presentation. The prince de Soubise, the ducs de la Trimoulle, d'Ayen, d'Aiguillon, and the marquis de Chauvelin, were also to attend the king.
I replied, that the king was as yet undecided in his choice of ministers, but that, if the duc d'Aiguillon came into office, he would, in all probability, be nominated to the administration of foreign affairs: the direction of the war-office had been my noble friend's ardent desire.
They were seated at table laughing and amusing themselves; they talked of the pleasure of being to themselves, of having no strangers; they pierced me with a hundred thrusts; they triumphed! And yet the king was laughing in his sleeve. At a premeditated signal the duc d'Aiguillon, one of the guests, asked his majesty if he had seen the comtesse du Barry that day.
Little did I think that at a later period I should league myself against them. On the one hand, the duc d'Aiguillon hated them mortally, and on the other, the comte Jean, like a real Toulousian, would have carried them in his slippers; so that wavering between the admiration of the one and the hatred of the other, I knew not which to listen to, or which party to side with.
But now the doors of the royal apartments were flung wide open, and there was great trepidation among the crowd. The archbishop in his canonicals was seen standing by the bed of state; on one side of him stood the grand almoner, and on the other the minister, the Duke d'Aiguillon.
"During all this time, however, Du Barry, the Duc d'Aiguillon, and the aunts-Princesses, took special care to keep themselves between her and any tenderness on the part of the husband Dauphin, and, from different motives uniting in one end, tried every means to get the object of their hatred sent back to Vienna." "The Empress-mother was thoroughly aware of all that was going on.
I have never be enable to discover the true cause of the support given to M. de Saint-Germain's policy by the Queen, unless in the marked favour shown to the captains and officers of the Body Guards, who by this reduction became the only soldiers of their rank entrusted with the safety of the sovereign; or else in the Queen's strong prejudice against the Duc d'Aiguillon, then commander of the light-horse.
My family crowded around me, and sought to afford me that consolation they were in equal need of themselves. Spite of the orders I had given to admit no person, the duc d'Aiguillon would insist upon seeing me.
M. d'Aiguillon fully concurred in this observation, and M. de Sartines, recovered in some measure from his first alarm, promised every thing they could desire; and it was finally arranged that the police should this night use every precautionary measure in Paris, and that the officers of the guard should receive orders to redouble their zeal and activity in watching the chateau; and that when the unknown female called again on me, she should be conducted by madame de Mirepoix to the duc d'Aiguillon, who would interrogate her closely.
Word Of The Day