deteriorated and deranged by the frequency and extravagance of his debauches. Meantime, we have left the Abbé bowing and the Duke grimacing at the bare idea of brown game and olives in the same stew-pan, a subject that occupied his attention for several minutes. Rousing himself after a while, he began, as usual, to detail the proceedings of the morning's council to Malletort, who had grown by degrees, from a mere comrade of his pleasures, into the confidential and principal adviser of his schemes. It promised to be a long report, and he motioned the Abbé, who had fortunately prepared himself with a stool, to sit down. There were many complaints to make—many knots to unfasten—many interests to reconcile, but the Abbé listened patiently, and suggested remedies for each in turn.
The parliament had been refractory. Nothing could bring them to subjection but a Bed of Justice, or full assemblage of peers and representatives in presence of the young king.
The Keeper of the Seals was unreasonable. He must be forced into collision with the parliament, whom he had always held in antagonism, and they might be left to punish each other.
The Duc du Maine and Marshal de Villeroy, constant thorns in the Regent's side, had applied for more powers, more pomp, and, worse still, more money, on the score of the young king. His Majesty must be set against his governors, and it could best be done by making a festival for him to which these would not trust his person, and from which an enforced restriction would cause the royal pupil to feel himself shamefully aggrieved. In short, conflicting interests were to be reconciled, if their disunion seemed to threaten the Government; political parties to be dissolved by a judicious apple of discord thrown in their midst at the Abbé's instigation; and a general balance of power to be established, in which the Regent could always preponderate by lending his own weight to the scale. Altogether a dozen difficulties of statecraft were disposed of in as many minutes, and the Duke, rising from the table, pressed his hand familiarly on the confidant's shoulder, to keep him in his seat, and exclaimed, gaily—
"They may well call me the 'Débonnaire,' little Abbé. Hein! There have been but two Bourbons yet who ever
