The disgrace of my delightful abbe left me without a patron, but I had plenty of money, and so was enabled to bear this misfortune with resignation.

For having undone all the work of Cardinal Richelieu, for having changed the old enmity between France and Austria into friendship, for delivering Italy from the horrors of war which befell her whenever these countries had a bone to pick, although he was the first cardinal made by a pope who had had plenty of opportunities for discovering his character, merely because, on being asked, he had given it as his opinion that the Prince de Soubise was not a fit person to command the French armies, this great ecclesiastic was driven into exile.  The moment the Pompadour heard of this opinion of his, she decreed his banishment—­a sentence which was unpopular with all classes of society; but they consoled themselves with epigrams, and the new cardinal was soon forgotten.  Such is the character of the French people; it cares neither for its own misfortunes nor for those of others, if only it can extract laughter from them.

In my time epigrammatists and poetasters who assailed ministers or even the king’s mistresses were sent to the Bastille, but the wits still persisted in being amusing, and there were some who considered a jest incomplete that was not followed by a prosecution.  A man whose name I have forgotten—­a great lover of notoriety—­appropriated the following verses by the younger Crebellon and went to the Bastille rather than disown them.

   “All the world’s upside down! 
   Jupiter has donned the gown—­the King. 
   Venus mounts the council stair—­the Pompadour. 
   Plutus trifles with the fair—­M. de Boulogne. 
   Mercury in mail is drest—­Marechal de Richelieu. 
   Mighty Mars has turned a priest—­the Duc de Clermont, abbe of
   St. Germain-des-pres.”

Crebillon, who was not the sort of man to conceal his writings, told the Duc de Choiseul that he had written some verses exactly like these, but that it was possible the prisoner had been inspired with precisely the same ideas.  This jest was applauded, and the author of “The Sofa” was let alone.

Cardinal de Bernis passed ten years in exile, ‘procul negotiis’, but he was not happy, as he told me himself when I knew him in Rome fifteen years afterwards.  It is said that it is better to be a minister than a king—­an, opinion which seems ridiculous when it is analyzed.  The question is, which is the better, independence or its contrary.  The axiom may possibly be verified in a despotic government under an absurd, weak, or careless king who serves as a mere mask for his master the minister; but in all other cases it is an absurdity.

Cardinal de Bernis was never recalled; there is no instance of Louis XV. having ever recalled a minister whom he had disgraced; but on the death of Rezzonico he had to go to Rome to be present at the conclave, and there he remained as French ambassador.