authoritative fussiness in public of the Marechal were insupportable to his Majesty, and that they held together only by those frightful ideas of poison.  To destroy them was to show the Marechal uncovered, and worse than that to show to the King, without appearing to make a charge against the Marechal, the criminal interest he had in exciting these alarms, and the falsehood and atrocity of such a venomous invention.  These reflections; which the health of the King each day confirmed, sapped all esteem, all gratitude, and left his Majesty in full liberty of conscience to prohibit, when he should be the master, all approach to his person on the part of so vile and so interested an impostor.

Frejus made use of these means to shelter himself against the possibility of the Marechal’s return, and to attach himself to the King without reserve.  The prodigious success of his schemes has been only too well felt since.

The banishment of Villeroy, flight and return of Frejus, and installation of Charost as governor of the King, were followed by the confirmation of his Majesty by the Cardinal de Rohan, and by his first communion, administered to him by this self-same Cardinal, his grand almoner.

CHAPTER CXV

Villeroy being banished, the last remaining obstacle in Dubois’ path was removed.  There was nothing:  now, to hinder him from being proclaimed prime minister.  I had opposed it as stoutly as I could; but my words were lost upon M. le Duc d’Orleans.  Accordingly, about two o’clock in the afternoon of the 23rd of August, 1722, Dubois was declared prime minister by the Regent, and by the Regent at once conducted to the King as such.

After this event I began insensibly to withdraw from public affairs.  Before the end of the year the King was consecrated at Rheims.  The disorder at the ceremony was inexpressible.  All precedent was forgotten.  Rank was hustled and jostled, so to speak, by the crowd.  The desire to exclude the nobility from all office and all dignity was obvious, at half a glance.  My spirit was ulcerated at this; I saw approaching the complete re-establishment of the bastards; my heart was cleft in twain, to see the Regent at the heels of his unworthy minister.  He was a prey to the interest, the avarice, the folly, of this miserable wretch, and no remedy possible.  Whatever experience I might have had of the astonishing weakness of M. le Duc d’Orleans, it had passed all bounds when I saw him with my own eyes make Dubois prime minister, after all I had said to him on the subject,—­after all he had said to me.  The year 1723 commenced, and found me in this spirit.  It is at the end of this year I have determined to end those memoirs, and the details of it will not be so full or so abundant as of preceding years.  I was hopelessly wearied with M. le Duc d’Orleans; I no longer approached this poor prince (with so many great and useless talents buried in him)—­except