remained faithful to my son. The libels which were dispersed for the
purpose of exciting the people against him had scarcely any effect. I
believe the plot would have succeeded better if the bastard and his wife
had not engaged in it, for they were extraordinarily hated at Paris. My
son told the Parliament they had nothing to do with the coinage; that he
would maintain the royal authority, and deliver it to the King when he
should be of age in the same state as he had found it on his becoming
Regent.

The Marechale d'Uxelles hated my son mortally;, but after the King's
death he played the fawning dog so completely that my son forgave him and
took him into favour again. In the latter affair he was disposed once
more to follow his natural inclination, but my son, having little value
for whatever he could do, said, "Well, if he will not sign he may let it
alone."

When the Marshal saw my son was serious and did not care at all for his
bravadoes, he became submissive and did what my son desired.

The wife of the cripple, the Duchesse du Maine, resolved to have an
explanation with my son. She made a sententious speech, just as if she
had been on the stage; she asked how he could think that the answer to
Fitz-Morris's book should have proceeded from her, or that a Princess of
the blood would degrade herself by composing libels? She told him, too,
that the Cardinal de Polignac was engaged in affairs of too much
importance to busy himself in trifles like this, and M. de Malezieux was
too much a philosopher to think of anything but the sciences. For her
own part, she said she had sufficient employment in educating her
children as became that royal dignity of which she had been wrongfully
deprived. My son only replied to her thus:--