Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 2, 2025
His highest title was Marquis de Seignelay. and ne'er a prince in France dare whisper against it, whereas here our King cannot do any such thing, but everybody's mouth is open against him for it, and the man that hath the favour also.
MM. de Blainville and Seignelay had good posts, proportioned to their capacity; the King never ceased to look upon them as the children of his dear M. Colbert. Before his death, this minister saw his three daughters become duchesses. The King, who had been pleased to make these marriages, had given each of them a dowry of a million in cash.
The Duke of Villa-Hermosa, Spanish Governor of the Low Countries, paid him the same compliment in the name of his master. Both parties were given audience on this magnificent vessel, where M. de Seignelay had raised a sort of throne of immense height. From Dunkirk the Court moved to Ypres, visiting all the places on the way, and arrived at Lille in Flanders on the 1st of August.
It is all stuff about the pernicious designs he had; and the king very cordially forgave him for having determined to die without reading his letter, in order to be better able to give his thoughts to God. M. de Seignelay was anxious to step into all his posts, and has not obtained a single one; he has plenty of cleverness, but little moral conduct.
That lends a grand air to M. de Seignelay, who had by nature sufficient vanity." Colbert had no need to seek out genealogies, and great alliances were naturally attracted to his power and the favor he was in. He had in himself that title which comes of superior merit, and which nothing can make up for, nothing can equal.
The memoir to Seignelay, cited above, declares and other documents sustain it that he was playing into the hands of the English, by sending furs, on his own account and that of his associates, to Albany, where he could sell them at a high rate, and at the same time avoid the payment of duties to the French farmers of the revenue.
With matters at such a pass Seignelay rightly thought the time had come to take decisive action. Three courses were open to him. The bishop and the Jesuits he could not recall. But both the governor and the intendant came within his power. One alternative was to dismiss Frontenac; another, to dismiss Duchesneau. Seignelay chose the third course and dismissed them both.
The humiliations of the Seven Years War, with the loss of so much of the French colonial empire, traceable in chief measure to naval decadence, had impressed the French government with the need of reviving their navy, which had consequently received a material development in quality, as well as in quantity, unparalleled since the days of Colbert and Seignelay, near a century before.
The French officers fitted up a pretty little cabin for her accommodation, and without more ado she took up her quarters on board the Seignelay, with no other escort or chaperonage than that of the good bishop.
God had left it to time to undeceive the all-powerful monarch; he alone held out amidst the ruins; after the fathers the sons were falling around him; Seignelay had followed Colbert to the tomb; Louvois was dead after Michael Le Tellier; Barbezieux died in his turn in 1701.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking