By this explanation of Amelot I easily comprehended the reason of these singular verbal orders.  The Cardinal wished to secure my failure in Spain, and my disgrace in France:  in Spain by making me offend at the outset all the greatest people and the minister through whose hands all my business would pass; draw upon myself thus complaints here, which, as I had no written orders to justify my conduct, he (Dubois) would completely admit the justice of, and then disavow me, declaring he had given me exactly opposite orders.  If I did not execute what he had told me, I felt that he would accuse me of sacrificing the King’s honour and the dignity of the Crown, in order to please in Spain, and obtain thus honours for myself and my sons, and that he would prohibit the latter to. accept them.  There would have been less uproar respecting the nuncio; but if I preceded him, Dubois felt persuaded that the Court of Rome would demand justice; and this justice in his hands would have been a shameful recall.

My position appeared so difficult, that I resolved to leave nothing undone in order to change it.  I thought M. le Duc d’Orleans would not resist the evidence I should bring forward, in order to show the extraordinary nature of Dubois’ verbal instructions:  I deceived myself.  It was in vain that I spoke to M. le Duc d’Orleans.  I found nothing but feebleness under the yoke of a master; by which I judged how much I could hope for during my absence.  Several times I argued with him and the Cardinal; but in vain.  They both declared that if preceding ambassadors had paid the first visits, that was no example for me, in an embassy so solemn and distinguished as that I was about to execute.  I represented that, however solemn and however distinguished might be my embassy, it gave me no rank superior to that of extraordinary ambassadors, and that I could claim none.  Useless! useless!  To my arguments there was no reply, but obstinacy prevailed; and I clearly saw the extreme malignity of the valet, and the unspeakable weakness of the master.  It was for me to manage as I could.

The Cardinal now began ardently to press my departure; and, in fact, there was no more time to lose.  He unceasingly hurried on the workmen who were making all that I required,—­vexed, perhaps, that being in such prodigious number, he could not augment them.  There was nothing more for him to do but to give me the letters with which I was to be charged.  He delayed writing them until the last moment previous to my departure, that is to say; the very evening before I started; the reason will soon be seen.  The letters were for their Catholic Majesties, for the Queen Dowager at Bayonne, and for the Prince of the Asturias; letters from the King and from the Duc d’Orleans.  But before giving them to me, the Regent said he would write two letters to the Prince of the Asturias, both alike, except in this respect, that in the one he would address the Prince as “nephew,” and in the other as “brother and nephew,” and that I was to try and deliver the latter, which he passionately wished; but that if I found too much difficulty in doing so, I must not persevere but deliver the former instead.