It is strange what an impression the wildest absurdities leave if they are spread abroad with art.  The first thing Fontanieu did was to tremble violently all over and become whiter than his shirt.  With difficulty he stammered out a few words to the effect that he would do for M. le Duc d’Orleans as much as his duty would permit him to do.  I smiled, looking fixedly at him, and this smile warned him apparently that he owed me an excuse for not being quite at ease upon any affair that passed through my hands; he directly made me one, at all events, and with the confusion of a man who sees that his first view has dazzled the second, and who, full of this first view, does not show anything, yet lets all be seen.

I reassured him as well as I could, and said that I had answered for him to M. le Duc d’Orleans, and afterwards that a Bed of justice was wanted, for the construction of which we had need of him.

Scarcely had I explained this, than the poor fellow began to take breath, as though escaping from stifling oppression, or a painful operation for the stone, and asked me if that was what I wanted?

He promised everything, so glad was he to be let off thus cheaply, and in truth he kept to his word, both as to the secret and the work.  He had never seen a Bed of justice, and had not the slightest notion what it was like.  I sat down on his bureau, and drew out the design of one.  I dictated to him the explanations in the margin, because I did not wish them to be in my handwriting.  I talked more than an hour with him; I disarranged his furniture, the better to show to him the order of the assembly, and explained to him what was to be done, so that all might be carried to the Tuileries and erected in a very, few moments.  When I found I had made everything sufficiently clear, and he had understood me, I returned to the Palais Royal as though recollecting something, being already in the streets, to deceive my people.

A servant awaited me at the top of the staircase, and the concierge of the Palais Royal at the door of M. le Duc d’Orleans’ room, with orders to beg me to write.  It was the sacred hour of the roues and the supper, at which all idea of business was banished.  I wrote, therefore, to the Regent in his winter cabinet what I had just done, not without some little indignation that he could not give up his pleasure for an affair of this importance.  I was obliged to beg the concierge not to give my note to M. le Duc d’Orleans unless he were in a state to read it and to burn it afterwards.

Our preparations for the Bed of justice continued to be actively but silently made during the next few days.  In the course of the numberless discussions which arose upon the subject, it was agreed, after much opposition on my part, to strike a blow, not only at the Parliament, but at M. du Maine, who had fomented its discontent.  M. le Duc, who had been admitted to our councils, and who was heart and soul