It was seen very clearly that the will assuredly could not have been made in favour of M. d’Orleans, and although public feeling against him had in no way changed, no one was so blind as not to see that he must be Regent by the incontestable right of his birth; that the dispositions of the testament could not weaken that right, except by establishing a power that should balance his; and that thus two parties would be formed in the state the chief of each of which would be interested in vanquishing the other, everybody being necessitated to join one side or other, thereby running a thousand risks without any advantage.  The rights of the two disputants were compared.  In the one they were found sacred, in the other they could not be found at all.  The two persons were compared.  Both were found odious, but M. d’Orleans was deemed superior to M. du Maine.  I speak only of the mass of uninstructed people, and of what presented itself naturally and of itself.  The better informed had even more cause to arrive at the same decision.

M. d’Orleans was stunned by the blow; he felt that it fell directly upon him, but during the lifetime of the King he saw no remedy for it.  Silence respectful and profound appeared to him the sole course open; any other would only have led to an increase of precautions.  The King avoided all discourse with him upon this matter; M. du Maine the same.  M. d’Orleans was contented with a simple approving monosyllable to both, like a courtier who ought not to meddle with anything; and he avoided conversation upon this subject, even with Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans, and with anybody else.  I was the sole person to whom he dared to unbosom himself; with the rest of the world he had an open, an ordinary manner, was on his guard against any discontented sign, and against the curiosity of all eyes.  The inexpressible abandonment in which he was, in the midst of the Court, guaranteed him at least from all remarks upon the will.  It was not until the health of the King grew more menacing that he began to speak and be spoken to thereon.

As for M. du Maine, despite his good fortune, he was not to be envied At Sceaux, where he lived, the Duchesse du Maine, his wife, ruined him by her extravagance.  Sceaux was more than ever the theatre of her follies, and of the shame and embarrassment of her husband, by the crowd from the Court and the town, which abounded there and laughed at them.  She herself played there Athalie (assisted by actors and actresses) and other pieces several times a week.  Whole nights were passed in coteries, games, fetes, illuminations, fireworks, in a word, fancies and fripperies of every kind and every day.  She revelled in the joy of her new greatness—­redoubled her follies; and the Duc du Maine, who always trembled before her, and who, moreover, feared that the slightest contradiction would entirely turn her brain, suffered all this, even piteously doing the honours as often as he could without ceasing in his conduct to the King.