The matter was proposed to the Council by the Cardinal with much
importunity, concluding with a most submissive petition to the Queen to
condescend to the demand of the Duc d'Orleans, and to what the services
and merits of the Coadjutor demanded. The proposition was rejected with
such resolution and contempt as is very unusual in Council in opposition
to a Prime Minister. Tellier and Servien thought it sufficient not to
applaud him; but the Keeper of the Seals quite forgot his respect for the
Cardinal, accused him of prevarication and weakness, and threw himself at
her Majesty's feet, conjuring her in the name of the King her son, not to
authorise, by an example which he called fatal, the insolence of a
subject who was for wresting favours from his sovereign, sword in hand.
The Queen was moved at this, and the poor Cardinal owned he had been too
easy and pliant.

I had myself given a very natural handle to my adversaries to expose me
so egregiously. I have been guilty of many blunders, but I think this is
the grossest that I ever was guilty of in all my life. I have frequently
made this observation, that when men have, through fear of miscarriage,
hesitated a long time about any undertaking of consequence, the remaining
impressions of their fear commonly push them afterwards with too much
precipitancy upon the execution of their design. And this was my case.
It was with the greatest reluctance that I determined to accept the
dignity of a cardinal, because I thought it too mean to form a pretension
to it without certainty of success; and no sooner was I engaged in the
pursuit of it but the impression of the former fearful ideas hurried me
on, as it were, to the end, that I might get as soon as possible out of
the disagreeable state of uncertainty.

The Cardinal would have paid my debts, given me the place of Grand