The King went in state to Notre Dame and Saint Genevieve to thank God.  These mummeries, thus prolonged, extended to the end of August and the fete Saint-Louis.  Each year there, is on that day a concert in the garden.  The Marechal de Villeroy took care that on this occasion, the concert should become a species of fete, to which he added a display of fireworks.  Less than this would have been enough to draw the crowd.  It was so great that a pin could not have fallen to the ground through the mass of people wedged against each other in the garden.  The windows of the Tuileries were ornamented, and were filled with people.  All the roofs of the Carrousel, as well as the Place, were covered with spectators.

The Marechal de Villeroy was in; his element, and importuned the King, who tried to hide himself in the corners at every moment.  The Marechal took him by the arm, and led him, now to the windows where he could see the Carrousel, and the houses covered with people; now to those which looked upon the garden, full of the innumerable crowd waiting for the fete.  Everybody cried ‘Vive le Roi!’ when he appeared, but had not the Marechal detained him, he would have run away and hid himself.

“Look, my master,” the Marechal would say, “all that crowd, all these people are yours, all belong to you; you are the master of them:  look at them a little therefore, to please them, for they are all yours, they are all devoted to you.”

A nice lesson this for a governor to give to a young King, repeating it every time he leads him to the windows, so fearful is he lest the boy-sovereign shall forget it!  I do not know whether he received similar lessons from those who had the charge of his education.  At last the Marechal led him upon the terrace, where, beneath a dais, he heard the end of the concert, and afterwards saw the fireworks.  The lesson of the Marechal de Villeroy, so often and so publicly repeated, made much stir, and threw but little honour upon him.  He himself experienced the first effect of is fine instruction.

M. le Duc d’Orleans conducted himself in a manner simple, so prudent, that he infinitely gained by it.  His cares and his reasonable anxiety were measured; there was much reserve in his conversation, an exact and sustained attention in his language, and in his countenance, which allowed nothing to escape him, and which showed as little as possible that he was the successor to the crown; above all, he never gave cause for people to believe that he thought the King’s illness more or less serious than it was, or that his hopes were stronger than his fears.

He could not but feel that in a conjuncture so critical, all eyes were fixed upon him, and as in truth he never wished for the crown (however unlikely the statement may seem), he had no need to constrain himself in any way, but simply to be measured in his bearing.  His conduct was, in fact, much remarked, and the cabal opposed to him entirely reduced to silence.  Nobody spoke to him upon the event that might happen, not even his most familiar friends and acquaintances, myself included; and at this he was much pleased.  He acted entirely upon the suggestions of his own good sense.