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Updated: May 24, 2025
Madame de Maine entered first, seated D'Harmental by her, leaving Malezieux to do the honors to Cellamare and Richelieu. As the duchess had said, the Goddess of Night, dressed in black gauze spangled with golden stars, was waiting on the other side of the lake, accompanied by the twelve Hours; and, as the duchess approached, they began to sing a cantata appropriate to the subject.
They have got the pieces of all the mischievous Spanish letters written by the same hand, and corrected by that of the Cardinal de Polignac, so that there can be no doubt of his having composed them. A manifesto, too, has been found in Malezieux's papers. It is well written, but not improved by the translation. Malezieux pretends that he only translated it before it was sent hence to Spain.
The more the affair is examined, the more clearly does the guilt of the Duke and Duchess appear; for three days ago, Malezieux, who is in the Bastille, gave up his writing-desk. The first thing that was found in it was a projet, which Malezieux had written at the Duchess's bedside, and which Cardinal de Polignac had corrected with his own hand.
From the solitude of that closet went forth a book unique of its sort, full of sagacity, penetration, and severity, without bitterness; a picture of the manners of the court and of the world, traced by the hand of a spectator who had not essayed its temptations, but who guessed them and passed judgment on them all, "a book," as M. de Malezieux said to La Bruyere, "which was sure to bring its author many readers and many enemies."
If it had been a simple council, the talents of his eminence would soon have extricated us from our troubles, without the necessity of applying to you; but it is a bona fide conspiracy against the regent a conspiracy which numbers the king of Spain, Cardinal Alberoni, the Duc de Maine, myself, the Marquis de Pompadour, Monsieur de Malezieux, l'Abbe Brigaud, Valef, yourself, the cardinal himself the president; and which will include half the parliament and three parts of France.
The Duc and Duchesse du Maine rely upon nothing having been found in their writing; but Mademoiselle de Montauban and Malezieux have written. in their name; and is not what Pompadour has acknowledged voluntarily quite as satisfactory a proof as even their own writing?
Malezieux pretends that it is a Spanish letter, addressed to the Duchess, and that he had translated it for her, with the assistance of the Cardinal de Polignac; and yet the letters of Alberoni to the Prince de Cellamara refer so directly to this projet that it is easy to see that they spring from the same source.
"Peste!" said D'Harmental, a little piqued that they should not have left him time to go to the Rue du Temps-Perdu before coming to Sceaux; "I understand now why Madame de Maine told us to be so exact to the rendezvous; as to myself, I am very grateful to her highness." "First of all you must know, young man," interrupted Malezieux, "that there is no Madame de Maine nor highness in the question.
"The best plan which has been conceived," said Pompadour, "and the one which offered the greatest chance of success, was the first; and the proof is, that it was only overthrown by an unheard-of circumstance." "Well, if the plan was good then, it is so still," said Valef; "let us return to it!" "Yes, but in failing," said Malezieux, "this plan put the regent on his guard."
Monsieur de Malezieux was a man of from sixty to sixty-five, Chancellor of Dombes and Lord of Chatenay: he owed this double title to the gratitude of M. de Maine, whose education he had conducted.
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