All Paris has been mourning at the cursed decree which Law has persuaded my son to make. I have received anonymous letters, stating that I have nothing to fear on my own account, but that my son shall be pursued with fire and sword; that the plan is laid and the affair determined on. From another quarter I have learnt that knives are sharpening for my son's assassination. The most dreadful news is daily reaching me. Nothing could appease the discontent until, the Parliament having assembled, two of its members were deputed to wait upon my son, who received them graciously, and, following their advice, annulled the decree, and so restored things to their former condition. This proceeding has not only quieted all Paris, but has reconciled my son (thank God) to the Parliament.
My son wished by sending an embassy to give a public proof how much he wished for a reconciliation between the members of the Royal Family of England, but it was declined.
The goldsmiths will work no longer, for they charge their goods at three times more than they are worth, on account of the bank-notes. I have often wished those bank-notes were in the depths of the infernal regions; they have given my son much more trouble than relief. I know not how many inconveniences they have caused him. Nobody in France has a penny; but, saving your presence, and to speak in plain palatine, there is plenty of paper ..........................
It is singular enough that my son should only become so firmly attached to his black Parabere, when she had preferred another and had formally dismissed him.
Excepting the affair with Parabere, my son lives upon very good terms with his wife, who for her part cares very little about it; nothing is so near to her heart as her brother, the Duc du Maine. In a recent quarrel which she had with my son on this subject, she said she would retire to Rambouillet or Montmartre. "Wherever you please," he replied; "or wherever you think you will be most comfortable." This vexed her so mach that she wept day and night about it.
On the 17th of June, while I was at the Carmelites, Madame de Chateau-
Thiers came to see me, and said to me, "M. de Simiane is come from the Palais Royal; and he thinks it fit you should know that on your return you will find all the courts filled with the people who, although they do not say anything, will not disperse. At six o'clock this morning they brought in three dead bodies which M. Le Blanc has had removed. M. Law has taken refuge in the Palais Royal: they have done him no harm; but his coach man was stoned as he returned, and the carriage broken to pieces.
It was the coachman's fault, who told them 'they were a rabble, and ought to be hanged.'" I saw at once that it would not do to seem to be intimidated, so I ordered the coach to be driven to the Palais Royal.
There was such a press of carriages that I was obliged to wait a full hour before I reached the rue Saint-Honore; then I heard the people talking: they did not say anything against my son; they gave me several benedictions, and demanded that Law should be hanged. When I reached the Palais Royal all was calm again. My son came to me, and in the midst of my anxiety he was perfectly tranquil, and even made me laugh.
M. Le Blanc went with great boldness into the midst of the irritated populace and harangued them. He had the bodies of the men who had been crushed to death in the crowd brought away, and succeeded in quieting them.
My son is incapable of being serious and acting like a father with his children; he lives with them more like a brother than a father.
The Parliament not only opposed the edict, and would not allow it to pass, but also refused to give any opinion, and rejected the affair altogether. For this reason my son had a company of the footguard placed on Sunday morning at the entrance of the palace to prevent their assembling; and, at the same time, he addressed a letter to the Premier-
President, and to the Parliament a 'lettre-de-cachet', ordering them to repair to Pontoise to hold their sittings. The next day, when the musketeers had relieved the guards, the young fellows, not knowing what to do to amuse themselves, resolved to play at a parliament. They elected a chief and other presidents, the King's ministers, and the advocates. These things being settled, and having received a sausage and a pie for breakfast, they pronounced a sentence, in which they condemned the sausage to be cooked and the pie to be cut up.
All these things make me tremble for my son. I receive frequently anonymous letters full of dreadful menaces against him, assuring me that two hundred bottles of wine have been poisoned for him, and, if this should fail, that they will make use of a new artificial fire to burn him alive in the Palais Royal.
It is too true that Madame d'Orleans loves her brother better than her husband.
The Duc du Maine says that if, by his assistance, the King should obtain the direction of his own affairs, he would govern him entirely, and would be more a monarch than the King, and that after my son's death he would reign with his sister.
A week ago I received letters in which they threatened to burn my son at the Palais Royal and me at Saint Cloud. Lampoons are circulated in Paris.
My son has already slept several times at the Tuileries, but I fear that the King will not be able to accustom himself to his ways, for my son could never in his life play with children: he does not like them.
He was once beloved, but since the arrival of that cursed Law he is hated more and more. Not a week passes without my receiving by the post letters filled with frightful threats, in which my son is spoken of as a bad man and a tyrant.
I have just now received a letter in which he is threatened with poison.
When I showed it to him he did nothing but laugh, and said the Persian poison could not be given to him, and that all that was said about it was a fable.
To-morrow the Parliament will return to Paris, which will delight the Parisians as much as the departure of Law.
That old Maintenon has sent the Duc du Maine about to tell the members of the Royal Family that my son poisoned the Dauphin, the Dauphine, and the Duc de Berri. The old woman has even done more she has hinted to the Duchess that she is not secure in her husband's house, and that she should ask her brother for a counter-poison, as she herself was obliged to do during the latter days of the King's life.
The old woman lives very retired. No one can say that any imprudent expressions have escaped her. This makes me believe that she has some plan in her head, but I cannot guess what it is.
