I had worked and chatted for a long time with M. le Duc d’Orleans.  He had passed into his wardrobe, and I was standing behind his bureau arranging his papers when I saw Cardinal Dubois enter like a whirlwind, his eyes starting out of his head.  Seeing me alone, he screamed rather than asked, “Where is M. le Duc d’Orleans?” I replied that he had gone into his wardrobe, and seeing him so overturned, I asked him what was the matter.

“I am lost, I am lost!” he replied, running to the wardrobe.  His reply was so loud and so sharp that M. le Duc d’Orleans, who heard it, also ran forward, so that they met each other in the doorway.  They returned towards me, and the Regent asked what was the matter.

Dubois, who always stammered, could scarcely speak, so great was his rage and fear; but he succeeded at last in acquainting us with the details I have just given, although at greater length.  He concluded by saying that after the insults he had received so treacherously, and in a manner so basely premeditated, the Regent must choose between him and the Marechal de Villeroy, for that after what had passed he could not transact any business or remain at the Court in safety and honour, while the Marechal de Villeroy remained there!

I cannot express the astonishment into which M. le Duc d’Orleans and I were thrown.  We could not believe what we had heard, but fancied we were dreaming.  M. le Duc d’Orleans put several questions to Dubois, I took the liberty to do the same, in order to sift the affair to the bottom.  But there was no variation in the replies of the Cardinal, furious as he was.  Every moment he presented the same option to the Regent; every moment he proposed that the Cardinal de Bissy should be sent for as having witnessed everything.  It may be imagined that this second scene, which I would gladly have escaped, was tolerably exciting.

The Cardinal still insisting that the Regent must choose which of the two be sent away, M. le Duc d’Orleans asked me what I thought.  I replied that I was so bewildered and so moved by this astounding occurrence that I must collect myself before speaking.  The Cardinal, without addressing himself to me but to M. le Duc d’Orleans, who he saw was plunged Memoirs in embarrassment, strongly insisted that he must come to some resolution.  Upon this M. le Duc d’Orleans beckoned me over, and I said to him that hitherto I had always regarded the dismissal of the Marechal de Villeroy as a very dangerous enterprise, for reasons I had several times alleged to his Royal Highness:  but that now whatever peril there might be in undertaking it, the frightful scene that had just been enacted persuaded me that it would be much more dangerous to leave him near the King than to get rid of him altogether.  I added that this was my opinion, since his Royal Highness wished to know it without giving me the time to reflect upon it with more coolness; but as for the execution, that must be well discussed before being attempted.