of Cardinal Bouillon, being perhaps the only thing in France he regretted.  With such fine assistance the Chief-President—­on bad terms with his companions, who had openly despised him for some time—­perfectly made it up with them.  He kept at Pontoise open table for the Parliament; all were every day at liberty to use it if they liked, so that there were always several tables, all equally, delicately, and splendidly served.  He sent, too, to those who asked for them, liquors, etc., as they could desire.  Cooling drinks and fruits of all kinds were abundantly served every afternoon, and there were a number of little one and two-horse vehicles always ready for the ladies and old men who liked a drive, besides play-tables in the apartments until supper time.  The result of all this magnificence was, as I have said, that the Chief-President completely reinstated himself in the good graces of his companions; but it was at the expense of the Regent, who was laughed at for his pains.  A large number of the members of the Parliament did not go to Pontoise at all, but took advantage of the occasion to recreate themselves in the country.  Only a few of the younger members mounted guard in the assembly, where nothing but the most trivial and make-believe business was conducted.  Everything important was deliberately neglected.  Woe! to those, therefore, who had any trial on hand.  The Parliament, in a word, did nothing but divert itself, leave all business untouched, and laugh at the Regent and the government.  Banishment to Pontoise was a fine punishment!

This banishment of the Parliament to Pontoise was followed by various financial operations and by several changes in the administrations.  Des Forts had the general control of the finances and all authority, but without the name.  The disordered state of the exchequer did not hinder M. le Duc d’Orleans from indulging in his strange liberalities to people without merit and without need, and not one of whom he could possibly care a straw for.  He gave to Madame la Grande Duchesse an augmentation of her pension of 50,000 livres; one of 8,000 livres to Trudaine:  one of 9,000 livres to Chateauneuf; one of 8,000 livres to Bontems, chief valet de chambre of the King; one of 6,000 livres to the Marechal de Montesquieu; one of 3,000 livres to Faucault; and one of 9,000 livres to the widow of the Duc d’Albemarle, secretly remarried to the son of Mahoni.

All this time the public stock-jobbing still continued on the Place Vendome.  The Mississippi had tempted everybody.  It was who should fill his pockets first with millions, through M. le Duc d’Orleans and Law.  The crowd was very great.  One day the Marechal de Villars traversed the Place Vendome in a fine coach, loaded with pages and lackeys, to make way for which the mob of stock-jobbers had some difficulty.  The Marechal upon this harangued the people in his braggart manner from the carriage window, crying out against the iniquity of stock-jobbing,