After this event I began insensibly to withdraw from public affairs.
Before the end of the year the King was consecrated at Rheims. The
disorder at the ceremony was inexpressible. All precedent was forgotten.
Rank was hustled and jostled, so to speak, by the crowd. The desire to
exclude the nobility from all office and all dignity was obvious, at half
a glance. My spirit was ulcerated at this; I saw approaching the
complete re-establishment of the bastards; my heart was cleft in twain,
to see the Regent at the heels of his unworthy minister. He was a prey
to the interest, the avarice, the folly, of this miserable wretch, and no
remedy possible. Whatever experience I might have had of the astonishing
weakness of M. le Duc d'Orleans, it had passed all bounds when I saw him
with my own eyes make Dubois prime minister, after all I had said to him
on the subject,--after all he had said to me. The year 1723 commenced,
and found me in this spirit. It is at the end of this year I have
determined to end those memoirs, and the details of it will not be so
full or so abundant as of preceding years. I was hopelessly wearied with
M. le Duc d'Orleans; I no longer approached this poor prince (with so
many great and useless talents buried in him)--except with repugnance.
I could not help feeling for him what the poor, Israelites said to
themselves in the desert about the manna: "Nauseat anima mea suffer cibum
istum tevissimum." I no longer deigned to speak to him. He perceived
this: I felt he was pained at it; he strove to reconcile me to him,
without daring, however, to speak of affairs, except briefly, and with
constraint, and yet he could not hinder himself from speaking of them.
I scarcely took the trouble to reply to him, and I cut his conversation
as short as possible. I abridged and curtailed my audiences with him;
I listened to his reproaches with coldness. In fact, what had I to
discuss with a Regent who was no longer one, not even over himself, still
less over a realm plunged in disorder?