What I considered the most important thing to be done, was to overthrow entirely the system of government in which Cardinal Mazarin had imprisoned the King and the realm.  A foreigner, risen from the dregs of the people, who thinks of nothing but his own power and his own greatness, cares nothing for the state, except in its relation to himself.  He despises its laws, its genius, its advantages:  he is ignorant of its rules and its forms; he thinks only of subjugating all, of confounding all, of bringing all down to one level.  Richelieu and his successor, Mazarin, succeeded so well in this policy that the nobility, by degrees, became annihilated, as we now see them.  The pen and the robe people, on the other hand, were exalted; so that now things have reached such a pretty pass that the greatest lord is without power, and in a thousand different manners is dependent upon the meanest plebeian.  It is in this manner that things hasten from one extreme to the other.

My design was to commence by introducing the nobility into the ministry, with the dignity and authority due to them, and by degrees to dismiss the pen and robe people from all employ not purely judicial.  In this manner the administration of public affairs would be entirely in the hands of the aristocracy.  I proposed to abolish the two offices of secretary of state for the war department, and for foreign affairs, and to supply their place by councils; also, that the offices of the navy should be managed by a council.  I insisted upon the distinct and perfect separation of these councils, so that their authority should never be confounded, and the public should never have the slightest trouble in finding out where to address itself for any kind of business.

M. le Duc d’Orleans exceedingly relished my project, which we much discussed.  This point arrived at, it became necessary to debate upon the persons who were to form these councils.  I suggested names, which were accepted or set aside, according as they met his approval or disapprobation.  “But,” said M. le Duc d’Orleans, after we had been a long time at this work, “you propose everybody and never say a word of yourself.  What do you wish to be?”

I replied, that it was not for me to propose, still less to choose any office, but for him to see if he wished to employ me, believing me capable, and in that case to determine the place he wished me to occupy.  This was at Marly, in his chamber, and I shall never forget it.

After some little debate, that between equals would have been called complimentary, he proposed to me the Presidency of the Council of Finance.  But I had good reasons for shrinking from this office.  I saw that disordered as the finances had become there was only one remedy by which improvement could be effected; and this was National Bankruptcy.  Had I occupied the office, I should have been too strongly tempted to urge this view, and carry it out, but it