When the Marechal de Belle-Isle’s son was killed in battle, Madame persuaded the King to pay his father a visit.  He was rather reluctant, and Madame said to him, with an air half angry, half playful: 

--------“Barbare! don’t l’orgueil
Croit le sang d’un sujet trop pays d’un coup d’oeil.”

The King laughed, and said, “Whose fine verses are those?”—­“Voltaire’s,”
said Madame ------.

“As barbarous as I am, I gave him the place of gentleman in ordinary, and a pension,” said the King.

The King went in state to call on the Marshal, followed by all the Court; and it certainly appeared that this solemn visit consoled the Marshal for the loss of his son, the sole heir to his name.

When the Marshal died, he was carried to his house on a common hand-barrow, covered with a shabby cloth.  I met the body.  The bearers were laughing and singing.  I thought it was some servant, and asked who it was.  How great was my surprise at learning that these were the remains of a man abounding in honours and in riches.  Such is the Court; the dead are always in fault, and cannot be put out of sight too soon.

The King said, “M.  Fouquet is dead, I hear.”—­“He was no longer Fouquet,” replied the Duc d’Ayen; “Your Majesty had permitted him to change that name, under which, however, he acquired all his reputation.”  The King shrugged his shoulders.  His Majesty had, in fact, granted him letters patent, permitting him not to sign Fouquet during his Ministry.  I heard this on the occasion in question.  M. de Choiseul had the war department at his death.  He was every day more and more in favour.

Madame treated him with greater distinction than any previous Minister, and his manners towards her were the most agreeable it is possible to conceive, at once respectful and gallant.  He never passed a day without seeing her.  M. de Marigny could not endure M. de Choiseul, but he never spoke of him, except to his intimate friends.  Calling, one day, at Quesnay’s, I found him there.  They were talking of M. de Choiseul.  “He is a mere ’petit maitre’,” said the Doctor, “and, if he were handsome just fit to be one of Henri the Third’s favourites.”  The Marquis de Mirabeau and M. de La Riviere came in.  “This kingdom,” said Mirabeau, “is in a deplorable state.  There is neither national energy, nor the only substitute for it—­money.”—­“It can only be regenerated,” said La Riviere, “by a conquest, like that of China, or by some great internal convulsion; but woe to those who live to see that!  The French people do not do things by halves.”  These words made me tremble, and I hastened out of the room.  M. de Marigny did the same, though without appearing at all affected by what had been said.  “You heard De La Riviere,” said he,—­“but don’t be alarmed, the conversations that pass at the Doctor’s are never repeated; these are honourable men, though rather chimerical.  They know not where to stop.  I think, however, they are in the right way; only, unfortunately, they go too far.”  I wrote this down immediately.