"Before fifty years," pursued M. de Maupeou, "kings will be
nothing in France, and parliaments will be everything."
Talented, a good speaker, even eloquent, M. de Maupeou possessed
qualities which made the greatest enterprises successful. He was
convinced that all men have their price, and that it is only to
find out the sum at which they are purchasable.* As brave personally
as a marechal of France, his enemies (and he had many) called him
a coarse and quarrelsome man. Hated by all, he despised men in
a body, and jeered at them individually; but little sensible to the
charms of our sex, he only thought of us by freaks, and as a means
of relaxation. This is M. de Maupeou, painted to the life. As
for his person, you know it as well as I do. I have no need to
tell you, that he was little, ugly, and his complexion was yellow,
bordering upon green. It must be owned, however, that his face,
full of thought and intelligence, fully compensated for all the rest.
*This gentleman would have been an able coadjutor for
Sir Robert Walpole. -Trans.
You know how, as first president of the parliament of Paris, he
succeeded his father as vice-chancellor. At the resignation of the
titular M. de Lamoignon*, the elder Maupeou received his letters
of nomination, and as soon as they were registered, he resigned
in favor of his son. The Choiseuls had allowed the latter to be
nominated, relying on finding him a creature.
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