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The Queen discerned a party spirit in these combinations, and sided wholly with his enemies. After those inefficient comptrollers-general, Messieurs Joly de Fleury and d'Ormesson, it became necessary to resort to a man of more acknowledged talent, and the Queen's friends, at that time combining with the Comte d'Artois and with M. de Vergennes, got M. de Calonne appointed.

Internal quarrels in the cabinet rendered the comptroller-general's situation daily more precarious; he gave in his resignation. The king sent for M. d'Ormesson, councillor of state, of a virtue and integrity which were traditional in his family, but without experience of affairs and without any great natural capacity.

On the first and second of Floreal, the old representatives and trustees of liberty under the monarchy, twenty-five magistrates of the Paris and Toulouse parliaments, many of them being eminent intellects of the highest culture and noblest character, embracing the greatest historical names of the French magistracy, Etienne Pasquier, Lefevre d'Ormesson, Mole de Champlatreux, De Lamoignon, de Malesherbes, are sent to the guillotine by the judges and juries familiar to us, assassins or brutes who do not take the trouble, or who have not the capacity, to give proper color to their sentences.

"On pretence of being in Burgundy at the states," writes Oliver d'Ormesson, the prosecutor of Fouquet, "the prince had obtained perfect knowledge that Franche-Comte was without troops and without apprehension, because they had no doubt that the king would accord them neutrality as in the last war, the inhabitants having sent to him to ask it of him. He kept them amused.

The Commission deliberated for one week, an anxious period for Fouquet's friends, who trembled lest they had not secured judges enough to resist the pressure from above. At last the court was reopened. D'Ormesson, a man of excellent family and social position, who had favored the accused throughout the trial, delivered his opinion at length. He concluded for banishment.

Shortly after this, the deputies d'Ormesson and Duport announced to the assembly the taking of the Bastille, and the deaths of De Launay and Flesselles. It was proposed to send a third deputation to the king, imploring the removal of the troops. "No," said Clermont Tonnerre, "leave them the night to consult in; kings must buy experience as well as other men."

"Unfortunately it is we who..." M. d'Ormesson was beginning, when from behind him M. de La Tour d'Azyr's voice cut in crisply: "This interest on your part in M. Moreau, dear Countess..." He broke off, observing a vague challenge in the air with which she confronted him. But indeed his sentence did not need completing. There was a vaguely awkward pause. And then she looked at M. d'Ormesson.

The Queen discerned a party spirit in these combinations, and sided wholly with his enemies. After those inefficient comptrollers-general, Messieurs Joly de Fleury and d'Ormesson, it became necessary to resort to a man of more acknowledged talent, and the Queen's friends, at that time combining with the Comte d'Artois and with M. de Vergennes, got M. de Calonne appointed.

Oliver d'Ormesson lost the stewardship of Soissonness, to which he had the titular right, but he did not allow himself to be diverted from his scrupulous integrity. Nay, he grew wroth at the continual attacks of Chancellor Seguier, more of a courtier than ever in his old age, and anxious to finish the matter to the satisfaction of the court.

There he had found M. de La Tour d'Azyr already awaiting him, supported by a M. d'Ormesson, a swarthy young gentleman in the blue uniform of a captain in the Gardes du Corps. Andre-Louis had been silent and preoccupied throughout that drive. He was perturbed by his last interview with Mademoiselle de Kercadiou and the rash inferences which he had drawn as to her motives.