"
"Sire," replied I, "that only proves how much danger you incurred
by keeping such a man in your employment."
"Why, yes," answered Louis XV; "it really seem as though, had he
chosen some fine morning to propose my abdicating the throne in
favour of the dauphin, he would only have needed to utter the
suggestion to have it carried into execution. Fortunately for me,
my grandson is by no means partial to him, and will most certainly
never recall him after my death. The dauphin possesses all the
obstinacy of persons of confined understanding: he has but slender
judgment, and will see with no eye but his own."
Louis XV augured ill of his successor's reign, and imagined that
the cabinet of Vienna would direct that of Versailles at pleasure.
His late majesty was mistaken; Louis XVI is endowed with many
rare virtues, but they are unfortunately clouded over by his
timidity and want of self-confidence.
The open and undisguised censure passed by the whole court upon
the conduct of Louis XV was not the only thing which annoyed his
majesty, who perpetually tormented himself with conjectures of
what the rest of Europe would say and think of his late determinations.
"I will engage," said he, "that I am finely pulled to pieces at
Potsdam. My dear brother Frederick is about as sweet-tempered as
a bear, and I must not dismiss a minister who is displeasing to
me without his passing a hundred comments and sarcastic remarks.
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