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Updated: May 28, 2025
Since his return to France he had had the address to conciliate Maurepas, who, adding the authority of his ministerial office to the solicitations of the cardinal's sister, Madame de Marsan, had succeeded in wringing from the unwilling king his appointment to the honorable and lucrative preferment of grand almoner.
Maurepas was of great military importance, for, with Guillemont on the British front, it formed advanced works of the stronghold of Combles. The attack was launched at five in the evening on a front of a mile and a quarter from north of Hardecourt to southeast of Maurepas.
On the same day, August 24, 1916, the British troops on the north of the Somme attacked the German positions in the Maurepas region and carried with a rush that part of the village still held by the Germans and the adjoining trenches, taking 600 prisoners and eighteen guns.
M. d'Armenouville is Secretary of State for the Navy; M. le Blanc, for the Army; M. de la Vrilliere, for the Home Department; the Abbe Dubois, for Foreign Affairs; M. de Maurepas, for the Royal Household; and a Bishop for the Church Benefices. Malezieux and the Cardinal de Polignac had probably as great a share in the answer to Fitz-Morris as the Duchesse du Maine.
M. de Vergennes was as hostile to the Queen's influence as M. de Maurepas. It may therefore be fairly presumed, since the Prime Minister durst point out to his King an advantage to be gained by the Queen's discrediting herself, that he and M. de Vergennes employed all means within the reach of powerful ministers in order to ruin her in the opinion of the public.
I was with the Queen when the King, having finished his researches, informed her that he had not found anything among the secret papers elucidating the existence of this prisoner; that he had conversed on the matter with M. de Maurepas, whose age made him contemporary with the epoch during which the story must have been known to the ministers; and that M. de Maurepas had assured him he was merely a prisoner of a very dangerous character, in consequence of his disposition for intrigue.
Every one of them sees the difference between falling at the feet of Leclerc, like Clerveaux; or joining him on the very field on which you were about to oppose him, like Maurepas; and making a truce, for a short interval, when you are almost destitute of ammunition, and the enemy so exhausted with the heats as to decline coming into the field; while, at the same time, fresh troops are pouring in upon the coast, in such numbers as to prevent your regaining your independence by remaining in arms.
Then turning to the Prince de Harrai, he continued good-humoredly: "If your highness is made to wait in the anteroom, there is no reason why the Count of Falkenstein should not bear you company. Let us, then, wait together." The ministerial conference lasted half an hour longer, but at last the door opened, and Monsieur de Maurepas appeared.
Maurepas is very agreeable, and exceedingly cheerful; yet I have seen a transient silent cloud when politics are talked of. Madame de Boufflers, who was in England, is a savante, mistress of the Prince of Conti, and very desirous of being his wife. She is two women, the upper and the lower. I need not tell you that the lower is gallant, and still has pretensions.
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.
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