led him into high play, at which he was extremely successful; always a
good and sure player, and very straightforward, he gained largely.
Monsieur, who sometimes made little visits to Paris, and who played very
high, permitted him to join the gambling parties of the Palais Royal,
then those of Saint-Cloud. Lauzun passed thus several years, gaining and
lending much money very nobly; but the nearer he found himself to the
Court, and to the great world, the more insupportable became to him the
prohibition he had received.

Finally, being no longer able to bear it, he asked the King for
permission to go to England, where high play was much in vogue. He
obtained it, and took with him a good deal of money, which secured him an
open-armed reception in London, where he was not less successful than in
Paris.

James II., then reigning, received Lauzun with distinction. But the
Revolution was already brewing. It burst after Lauzun had been in
England eight or ten months. It seemed made expressly for him, by the
success he derived from it, as everybody is aware. James II., no longer
knowing what was to become of him--betrayed by his favourites and his
ministers, abandoned by all his nation, the Prince of Orange master of
all hearts, the troops, the navy, and ready to enter London--the unhappy
monarch confided to Lauzun what he held most dear--the Queen and the
Prince of Wales, whom Lauzun happily conducted to Calais. The Queen at
once despatched a courier to the King, in the midst of the compliments of
which she insinuated that by the side of her joy at finding herself and
her son in security under his protection, was her grief at not daring to
bring with her him to whom she owed her safety.

The reply of the King, after much generous and gallant sentiment, was,