a single point.  This was the first reward Boufflers received for the services he had just rendered, and that, too, from a King who had said in public that without Boufflers all was lost, and that assuredly it was God who had inspired him with the idea of going to the army.  From that time Boufflers fell into a disgrace from which he never recovered.  He had the courage to appear as usual at the Court; but a worm was gnawing him within and destroyed him.  Oftentimes he opened his heart to me without rashness, and without passing the strict limits of his virtue; but the poniard was in his heart, and neither time nor reflection could dull its edge.  He did nothing but languish afterwards, yet without being confined to his bed or to his chamber, but did not live more than two years.  Villars, on the contrary, was in greater favour than ever.  He arrived at Court triumphant.  The King made him occupy an apartment at Versailles, so that his wound might be well attended to.

What a contrast!  What a difference between the services, the merit, the condition, the virtue, the situation of these two men!  What inexhaustible funds of reflection.

CHAPTER L

I have described in its proper place the profound fall of M. le Duc d’Orleans and the neglect in which he lived, out of all favour with the King, hated by Madame de Maintenon and Monseigneur, and regarded with an unfavourable eye by the public, on account of the scandals of his private life.  I had long seen that the only way in which he could hope to recover his position would be to give up his mistress, Madame d’Argenton, with whom he had been on terms of intimacy for many years past, to the knowledge and the scandal of all the world.  I knew it would be a bold and dangerous game to play, to try to persuade him to separate himself from a woman he had known and loved so long; but I determined to engage in it, nevertheless, and I looked about for some one to assist me in this enterprise.  At once I cast my eyes upon the Marechal de Besons, who for many long years had been the bosom friend of M. d’Orleans.  He applauded the undertaking, but doubted, he said, its success; nevertheless he promised to aid me to the utmost of his power, and, it will be seen, was as good as his word.  For some time I had no opportunity of accosting M. d’Orleans, and was obliged to keep my project in abeyance, but I did not lose sight of it; and when I saw my way clear, I took the matter in hand, determined to strain every nerve in order to succeed.

It was just at the commencement of the year 1710, that I first spoke to M. d’Orleans.  I began by extracting from him an admission of the neglect into which he had fallen—­the dislike of the King, the hatred of Monseigneur, who accused him of wishing to replace his son in Spain; that of Madame de Maintenon, whom he had offended by his bon mot; the suspicions of the public, who talked of his chemical