to retain his rank.--See The Memoirs of Saint-Simon, Chapter XCIII.--D.W.]

Madame d'Orleans was in the greatest despair, and came to Paris in such a
condition as moved my pity for her. Madame du Maine is reported to have
said, three weeks ago, at a grand dinner, "I am accused of having caused
the Parliament to revolt against the Duc d'Orleans, but I despise him too
much to take so noble a vengeance; I will be revenged in another manner."

The Parliament had very notable projects in hand. If my son had delayed
four-and-twenty hours longer in removing the Duc du Maine from the King
it would have been decided to declare His Majesty of full age; but my son
frustrated this by dismissing the Duke, and degrading him at the same
time. The Chief President is said to have been so frightened that he
remained motionless, as if he had been petrified by a gaze at the head of
Medusa. That celebrated personage of antiquity could not have been more
a fury than Madame du Maine; she threatened dreadfully, and did not
scruple to say, in the presence of her household, that she would yet find
means to give the Regent such a blow as should make him bite the dust.
That old Maintenon and her pupil have also had a finger in the pie.

The Parliament asked pardon of my son, which proves that the Duc and
Duchesse du Maine were the mainsprings of the plot.

There is reason to believe that the old woman and the former Chancellor
were also implicated in it. The Chancellor, who would have betrayed my
son in so shameful a manner, was under the heaviest obligations to him.
What has happened is a great mortification to Maintenon, and yet she has
not given up all hopes. This makes me very anxious, for I know how
expertly she can manage poison. My son, instead of being cautious, goes
about the town at night in strange carriages, sometimes supping with one