The opinions taken almost as soon as demanded, M. le Duc d’Orleans said, “Gentlemen, it is finished, then justice is done, and the rights of Messieurs the Peers are in safety.  I have now an act of grace to propose to you, and I do so with all the more confidence, because I have taken care to consult the parties interested, who support me; and because, I have drawn up the document in a manner to wound no one.  What I am going to explain to you, regards the Comte de Toulouse alone.

“Nobody is ignorant how he has disapproved all that has been done in favour of him and his brother, and that he has sustained it since the regency only out of respect for the wishes of the late King.  Everybody knows also his virtue, his merit, his application, his probity, his disinterestedness.  Nevertheless, I could not avoid including him in the declaration you have just heard.  Justice furnishes no exception in his favour, and the rights of the Peers must be assured.  Now that they are no longer attacked, I have thought fitly to render to merit what from equity I have taken from birth; and to make an exception of M. le Comte de Toulouse, which (while confirming the rule), will leave him in full possession of all the honours he enjoys to the exclusion of every other.  Those honours are not to pass to his children, should he marry and have any, or their restitution be considered as a precedent to be made use of at any future time.

“I have the pleasure to announce that the Princes of the Blood consent to this, and that such of the Peers to whom I have been able to explain myself, share my sentiments.  I doubt not that the esteem he has acquired here will render this proposition agreeable to you.”  And then turning to the Keeper of the Seals, “Monsieur, will you read the declaration?”

It was read at once.

I had, during the discourse of his Royal Highness, thrown all my attention into an examination of the impression it made upon the assembly.  The astonishment it caused was general; it was such, that to judge of those addressed, it seemed that they understood nothing; and they did not recover themselves during all the reading.  I inwardly rejoiced at success so pleasingly demonstrated and did not receive too well the Duc de Guiche, who testified to me his disapprobation.  Villeroy confounded, Villars raging, Effiat rolling his eyes, Estrees beside himself with surprise, were the most marked.  Tallard, with his head stretched forward, sucked in, so to speak, all the Regent’s words as they were proffered, and those of the declaration, as the Keeper of the Seals read them.  Noailles, inwardly distracted, could not hide his distraction; Huxelles, entirely occupied in smoothing himself, forgot to frown.  I divided my attention between the declaration and these persons.