“Hold your tongue, Madame,” said I.  “This is terrible.”

But she kept on, and spoke so loudly that I feared the King would hear her.  Boulduc and I looked at each other, and I immediately withdrew from the bed and from this mad woman, with whom I was in no way familiar.  During this illness, which lasted only five days (but of which the first three were violent) I was much troubled, but at the same time I was exceedingly glad that I had refused to be the King’s governor, though the Regent had over and over again pressed me to accept the office.  There were too many evil reports in circulation against M. le Duc d’Orleans for me to dream of filling this position.  For was I not his bosom friend known to have been on the most intimate terms with him ever since his child hood—­and if anything had happened to excite new suspicions against him, what would not have been said?  The thought of this so troubled me during the King’s illness, that I used to wake in the night with a start, and, oh, what joy was mine when I remembered that I had not this duty on my head!

The malady, as I have said, was not long, and the convalescence was prompt, which restored tranquillity and joy, and caused an overflow of Te Deums and rejoicing.  Helvetius had all the honour of the cure; the doctors had lost their heads, he preserved his, and obstinately proposed bleeding at the foot, at a consultation at which M. le Duc d’Orleans was present; his advice prevailed, change for the better immediately took place, cure soon after.

The Marechal de Villeroy (the King’s governor) did not let slip this occasion for showing all his venom and his baseness; he forgot nothing, left nothing undone in order to fix suspicion upon M. le Duc d’Orleans, and thus pay his court to the robe.  No magistrate, however unimportant, could come to the Tuileries whom he did not himself go to with the news of the King and caresses; whilst to the first nobles he was inaccessible.  The magistrates of higher standing he allowed to enter at all times into the King’s chamber, even to stand by his bed in order to see him, while they who had the ‘grandes entrees’ with difficulty enjoyed a similar privilege.

He did the same during the first days of convalescence, which he prolonged as much as possible, in order to give the same distinction to the magistrates, come at what time they might, and privately to the great people of the Court and the ambassadors.  He fancied himself a tribune of the people, and aspired to their favour and their dangerous power.  From this he turned to other affectations which had the same aim against M. le Duc d’Orleans.  He multiplied the Te Deums that he induced the various ranks of petty officers of the King to have sung on different days and in different churches; he attended all, took with him as many people as he could, and for six weeks continued this game.  A Te Deum was sung in every church in Paris.  He spoke of nothing else, and above the real joy he felt at the King’s recovery, he put on a false one which had a party smell about it, and which avowed designs not to be mistaken.