Such was the man whose influence was given entirely to our opponent.

To assist M. de Luxembourg’s case as much as possible, the celebrated Racine, so known by his plays, and by the order he had received at that time to write the history of the King, was employed to polish and ornament his pleas.  Nothing was left undone by M. de Luxembourg in order to gain this cause.

I cannot give all the details of the case, the statements made on both sides, and the defences; they would occupy entire volumes.  We maintained that M. de Luxembourg was in no way entitled to the precedence he claimed, and we had both law and justice on our side.  To give instructions to our counsel, and to follow the progress of the case, we met once a week, seven or eight of us at least, those best disposed to give our time to the matter.  Among the most punctual was M. de la Rochefoucauld.  I had been solicited from the commencement to take part in the proceedings, and I complied most willingly, apologising for so doing to M. de Luxembourg, who replied with all the politeness and gallantry possible, that I could not do less than follow an example my father had set me.

The trial having commenced, we soon saw how badly disposed the Chief President was towards us.  He obstructed us in every way, and acted against all rules.  There seemed no other means of defeating his evident intention of judging against us than by gaining time, first of all; and to do this we determined to get the case adjourned, There were, however, only two days at our disposal, and that was not enough in order to comply with the forms required for such a step.  We were all in the greatest embarrassment, when it fortunately came into the head of one of our lawyers to remind us of a privilege we possessed, by which, without much difficulty, we could obtain what we required.  I was the only one who could, at that moment, make use of this privilege.  I hastened home, at once, to obtain the necessary papers, deposited them with the procureur of M. de Luxembourg, and the adjournment was obtained.  The rage of M. de Luxembourg was without bounds.  When we met he would not salute me, and in consequence I discontinued to salute him; by which he lost more than I, in his position and at his age, and furnished in the rooms and the galleries of Versailles a sufficiently ridiculous spectacle.  In addition to this he quarrelled openly with M. de Richelieu, and made a bitter attack upon him in one of his pleas.  But M. de Richelieu, meeting him soon after in the Salle des Gardes at Versailles, told him to his face that he should soon have a reply; and said that he feared him neither on horseback nor on foot—­neither him nor his crew—­neither in town nor at the Court, nor even in the army, nor in any place in the world; and without allowing time for a reply he turned on his heel.  In the end, M. de Luxembourg found himself so closely pressed that he was glad to apologise to M. de Richelieu.