At the commencement of December, the King declared that he wished there should be, contrary to custom, plays and “apartments” at Versailles even when Monseigneur should be at Meudon.  He thought apparently he must keep his Court full of amusements, to hide, if it was possible, abroad and at home, the disorder and the extremity of affairs.  For the same reason, the carnival was opened early this season, and all through the winter there were many balls of all kinds at the Court, where the wives of the ministers gave very magnificent displays, like fetes, to Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne and to all the Court.

But Paris did not remain less wretched or the provinces less desolated.

And thus I have arrived at the end of 1710.

At the commencement of the following year, 1711, that is to say, a few days after the middle of March, a cruel misfortune happened to the Marechal de Boufflers.  His eldest son was fourteen years of age, handsome, well made, of much promise, and who succeeded marvellously at the Court, when his father presented him there to the King to thank his Majesty for the reversion of the government of Flow and of Lille.  He returned afterwards to the College of the Jesuits, where he was being educated.  I know not what youthful folly he was guilty of with the two sons of D’Argenson; but the Jesuits, wishing to show that they made no distinction of persons, whipped the little lad, because, to say the truth, they had nothing to fear from the Marechal de Boufflers; but they took good care to left the others off, although equally guilty, because they had to reckon with D’Argenson, lieutenant of the police, of much credit in book matters, Jansenism, and all sorts of things and affairs in which they were interested.

Little Boufflers, who was full of courage, and who had done no more than the two Argensons, and with them, was seized with such despair, that he fell ill that same day.  He was carried to the Marechal’s house, but it was impossible to save him.  The heart was seized, the blood diseased, the purples appeared; in four days all was over.  The state of the father and mother may be imagined!  The King, who was much touched by it, did not let them ask or wait for him.  He sent one of his gentlemen to testify to them the share he had in their loss, and announced that he would give to their remaining son ’what he had already given to the other.  As for the Jesuits, the universal cry against them was prodigious; but that was all.  This would be the place, now that I am speaking of the Jesuits, to speak of another affair in which they were concerned.  But I pass over, for the present, the dissensions that broke out at about this time, and that ultimately led to the famous Papal Bull Unigenitus, so fatal to the Church and to the State, so shameful far Rome, and so injurious to religion; and I proceed to speak of the great event of this year which led to others so memorable and so unexpected.