The strangeness of this
refusal puzzled Louis XV not a little. He said to me. "Can you
make out the real motive of this silly conduct? I had a better
opinion of the man; I thought him possessed of sense, but I see
now that he is only fit for the cowl of a monk; he will never be
a minister." The king was mistaken; M. de Muy became one under
the auspices of his successor.
Immediately that the prince de Conde was informed of what had
passed, he recommenced his attack; and finding he could not be
minister himself, he determined, at least, to be principally
concerned in the appointment of one; he therefore proposed the
marquis de Monteynard, a man of such negative qualities, that the
best that could be said of him was, that he was as incapable of a
bad as of a good action; and, for want of a better, he was elected.
Such were the colleagues given to M. de Maupeou to conduct the
war which was about to be declared against the parliaments. I
should tell you,
, that the discontent of the magistracy
had only increased, and that the parliament of Paris had even
finished by refusing to decide the suits which were referred to
them; thus punishing the poor litigants for their quarrel with
the minister.
Meanwhile, the general interest expressed for the duc de Choiseul
greatly irritated the king.
"Who would have thought," said he to me, "that a disgraced minister
could have been so idolized by a whole court? Would you believe
that I receive a hundred petitions a day for leave to visit at
Chanteloup? This is something new indeed! I cannot understand it.
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