I pulled him so hard that he seated himself near me without understanding aught.

“But what is the meaning of all this?” he demanded; “where are these gentlemen?”

“I don’t know,” replied I, impatiently; “but they are not here.”

At the same time, the Duc de Noailles, who sat next to the Duc de Guiche, and who, enraged at counting for nothing in preparations for such a great day, had apparently divined that I was in the plot, vanquished by his curiosity, stretched over the table in front of the Duc de Guiche, and said to me: 

“In the name of Heaven, M. le Duc, do me the favour to say what all this means?”

I was at daggers-drawn with him, as I have explained, and had no mercy for him.  I turned, therefore, towards him with a cold and disdainful air, and, after having heard him out, and looked at him, I turned away again.  That was all my reply.  The Duc de Guiche pressed me to say something, even if it was only that I knew all.  I denied it, and yet each seated himself slowly, because intent only upon looking around, and divining what all this could mean, and because it was a long time before any one could comprehend that we must proceed to business without the bastards, although nobody opened his mouth.

When everybody was in his place M. le Duc d’Orleans after having far a moment looked all around, every eye fixed upon him, said that he had assembled this Regency Council to hear read the resolutions adopted at the last; that he had come to the conclusion that there was no other means of obtaining the registration of the finance edict recently passed than that of holding a Bed of justice; that the heat rendering it unadvisable to jeopardise the King’s health in the midst of the crowd of the Palais de justice, he had thought it best to follow the example of the late King, who had sometimes sent for the Parliament to the Tuileries; that, as it had become necessary to hold this Bed of justice, he had thought it right to profit by the occasion, and register the ‘lettres de provision’ of the Keeper of the Seals at the commencement of the sitting; and he ordered the Keeper of the Seals to read them.

During this reading, which had no other importance than to seize an occasion of forcing the Parliament to recognize the Keeper of the Seals, whose person and whose commission they hated, I occupied myself in examining the faces.

I saw M. le Duc d’Orleans with an air of authority and of attention, so new that I was struck with it.  M. le Duc, gay and brilliant, appeared quite at his ease, and confident.  The Prince de Conti, astonished, absent, meditative, seemed to see nothing and to take part in nothing.  The Keeper of the Seals, grave and pensive, appeared to have too many things in his head; nevertheless, with bag, wax, and seals near him, he looked very decided and very firm.  The Duc de la Force hung his head, but examined on the sly the faces of us all.  Marechal Villeroy and Marechal