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Updated: May 31, 2025
The sieur Ledoux The lettre de cachet The duc de la Vrilliere Madame de Langeac M. de Maupeou Louis XV The comte Jean On that very evening, the king having come to me, I said to him, "Sire, I have made acquaintance with M. de Sartines." "What! has he been to make friends with you?" "Something like it: but he has appeared to me less culpable than I thought.
The breaking up of the Parliament of Paris, in the latter years of the preceding reign, had thrown the whole body of judges and lawyers into a state of discontent bordering on revolt. The new court of justice which had superseded the old one, the Parlement Maupeou as it was called, after the name of the chancellor who had advised its formation, was neither liked nor respected.
M. de Maupeou, whose good services I can never sufficiently vaunt, came to me one day, and said, "I think that I have found a lady <presenteuse>. I have a dame of quality who will do what we want." "Who is it?" said I, with joy. "A comtesse d'Escarbagnas, a litigious lady, with much ambition and avarice. You must see her, talk with her, and understand each other." "But where can we see her?"
The ferment subsided without having reached the mass of the nation; the majority of the princes made it up with the court, the dispossessed magistrates returned one after another to Paris, astonished and mortified to see justice administered without them and advocates pleading before the Maupeou Parliament.
He died piously in his prison, in 1680, a year before his venerable mother, Marie Maupeou, who was so deeply concerned about her son's soul at the very pinnacle of greatness, that she threw herself upon her knees on hearing of his arrest, and exclaimed, I thank thee, O God; I have always prayed for his salvation, and here is the way to it!"
"Yes," said de Maupeou, laughing, "she is a type of court ladies, a mixture of dignity and suppleness, majesty and condescension, which is worth its weight in gold. She was destined from all eternity to be the companion of the king's female friends."
I watched the countenance of the king as he read, and saw the frown that covered it grow darker and darker; nevertheless he continued to read on without comment till he had reached the end; then sitting down and looking full at the chancellor, he exclaimed, "Well, M. de Maupeou, and what do you think of this business?"
But he made a mistake as to the force of power, and what it was possible to effect in his times. Maupeou had re-established parliament, changing its members; Lamoignon wished to disorganize it.
M. de Maupeou encouraged her, by every possible argument, to neglect no means of arriving at so important a discovery. The examination over, and the 100,000 francs she had demanded given to her, she retired, but followed at a distance by a number of spies, who were commissioned to watch her slightest movement.
I could willingly have enjoyed a hearty laugh at this scene, but, out of respect for M. de Maupeou, I feigned to be much displeased with Zamor, whom I desired one of the attendants to flog for his rudeness. However, the guests and the chancellor uniting in entreaties that I would pardon him, I was obliged to allow my assumed anger to give way to their request, and the culprit received a pardon.
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