Minister, she offered me the cardinal's hat, but with this proviso, that
I would use my utmost endeavours towards the restoration of Cardinal
Mazarin. Then I judged it high time for me to speak my mind, which I did
as follows:

"It is a great affliction to me, madame, that public affairs are reduced
to such a pass as not only warrants, but even commands a subject to speak
to his sovereign in the style in which I am now about to address your
Majesty. It is well known to you that one of my worst crimes in the
Cardinal's opinion is that I foretold all these things, and that I have
passed for the author of events of which I was only the prophet. Your
Majesty would fain extricate yourself with honour, and you are in the
right; but permit me to tell you, as my opinion, that it can never be
effected so long as your Majesty entertains any thoughts of
reestablishing Mazarin. I should fail in the respect I owe to your
Majesty if I pretended to thwart your Majesty's opinion with regard to
the Cardinal in any other way than with my most humble remonstrances; but
I humbly conceive I do but discharge my bounden duty while I respectfully
represent to your Majesty wherein I may be serviceable or useless to you
at this critical juncture. Your Majesty has the Prince to cope with,
who, indeed, is for the restoration of the Cardinal, but upon condition
that you give him such powers beforehand as will enable him to ruin him
at pleasure. To resist the Prince you want the Duc d'Orleans, who is
absolutely against the Cardinal's reestablishment, and who, provided he
be excluded, will do what your Majesty pleases to command him. You will
neither satisfy the Prince nor the Duke. I am extremely desirous to
serve your Majesty against the one and with the other, but I can do
neither the one nor the other without making use of proper means for
obtaining those two different ends."