service, and of asperity towards one’s self.  I see with pain that it will be indispensable to put in practice the most violent and the harshest measures.”  The king’s army, meanwhile, was continuing to fall back; a general outcry arose at Paris against the general’s supineness.  On the 23d of June he was surprised by Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick in the strong position of Crevelt, which he had occupied for two days past; the reserves did not advance in time, orders to retreat were given too soon, the battle was lost without disaster and without any rout; the general was lost as well as the battle.  “It is certain,” says the Marquis of Vogel, in his narrative of the affair, “that Count Clermont was at table in his headquarters of Weschelen at one o’clock, that he had lost the battle before six, arrived at Reuss at half past ten, and went to bed at midnight; that is doing a great deal in a short time.”  The Count of Gisors, son of Marshal Belle-Isle, a young officer of the greatest promise, had been killed at Crevelt; Count Clermont was superseded by the Marquis of Contades.  The army murmured; they had no confidence in their leaders.  At Versailles, Abbe de Bernis, who had lately become a cardinal, paid by his disgrace for the persistency he had shown in advising peace.  He was chatting with M. de Stahrenberg, the Austrian ambassador, when he received a letter from the king, sending him off to his abbey of St. Medard de Soissons.  He continued the conversation without changing countenance, and then, breaking off the conversation just as the ambassador was beginning to speak of business.  “It is no longer to me, sir,” he said, “that you must explain yourself on these great topics; I have just received my dismissal from his Majesty.”  With the same coolness he quitted the court and returned, pending his embassy to Rome, to those elegant intellectual pleasures which suited him better than the crushing weight of a ministry in disastrous times, under an indolent and vain-minded monarch, who was governed by a woman as headstrong as she was frivolous and depraved.

Madame de Pompadour had just procured for herself a support in her obstinate bellicosity.  Cardinal Bernis was superseded in the ministry of foreign affairs by Count Stainville, who was created Duke of Choiseul.  After the death of Marshal Belle-Isle he exchanged the office for that of minister of war; with it he combined the ministry of the marine.  The foreign affairs were intrusted to the Duke of Praslin, his cousin.  The power rested almost entirely in the hands of the Duke of Choiseul.  Of high birth, clever, bold, ambitious, he had but lately aspired to couple the splendor of successes in the fashionable world with the serious preoccupations of politics; his marriage with Mdlle.  Crozat, a wealthy heiress, amiable and very much smitten with him, had strengthened his position.  Elevated to the ministry by Madame de Pompadour, and as yet promoting her views, he nevertheless gave signs of an independent spirit and a proud character, capable of exercising authority firmly in the presence and the teeth of all obstacles.  France hoped to find once more in M. de Choiseul a great minister; nor were her hopes destined to be completely deceived.