perhaps the place of master of the chapel.  Thus he would have been happier, and I should have had nothing to regret.”  I took the liberty of saying that I did not agree with her.  That he had yet remaining advantages, of which he could not be deprived; that his exile would terminate; and that he would then be a Cardinal, with an income of eight thousand louis a year.  “That is true,” she replied; “but I think of the mortifications he has undergone, and of the ambition which devours him; and, lastly, I think of myself.  I should have still enjoyed his society, and should have had, in my declining years, an old and amiable friend, if he had not been Minister.”  The King sent him away in anger, and was strongly inclined to refuse him the hat.  M. Quesnay told me, some months afterwards, that the Abbe wanted to be Prime Minister; that he had drawn up a memorial, setting forth that in difficult crises the public good required that there should be a central point (that was his expression), towards which everything should be directed.  Madame de Pompadour would not present the memorial; he insisted, though she said to him, “You will rain yourself.”  The King cast his eyes over it, and said “’central point,’—­that is to say himself, he wants to be Prime Minister.”  Madame tried to apologize for him, and said, “That expression might refer to the Marechal de Belle-Isle.”—­“Is he not just about to be made Cardinal?” said the King.  “This is a fine manoeuvre; he knows well enough that, by means of that dignity, he would compel the Ministers to assemble at his house, and then M. l’Abbe would be the central point.  Wherever there is a Cardinal in the council, he is sure, in the end, to take the lead.  Louis XIV., for this reason, did not choose to admit the Cardinal de Janson into the council, in spite of his great esteem for him.  The Cardinal de Fleury told me the same thing.  He had some desire that the Cardinal de Tencin should succeed him; but his sister was such an intrigante that Cardinal de Fleury advised me to have nothing to do with the matter, and I behaved so as to destroy all his hopes, and to undeceive others.  M. d’Argenson has strongly impressed me with the same opinion, and has succeeded in destroying all my respect for him.”  This is what the King said, according to my friend Quesnay, who, by the bye, was a great genius, as everybody said, and a very lively, agreeable man.  He liked to chat with me about the country.  I had been bred up there, and he used to set me a talking about the meadows of Normandy and Poitou, the wealth of the farmers, and the modes of culture.  He was the best-natured man in the world, and the farthest removed from petty intrigue.  While he lived at Court, he was much more occupied with the best manner of cultivating land than with anything that passed around him.  The man whom he esteemed the most was M. de la Riviere, a Counsellor of Parliament, who was also Intendant of Martinique; he looked upon him as a man of the greatest genius, and thought him the only person fit for the financial department of administration.