without discernment.  He granted one of an hundred louis to a pretty woman, who was very poor, and who assumed an illustrious name, to which she had no right.  The fear lest she should be plunged into vice led him to bestow such excessive bounty upon her; and the woman was an admirable dissembler.  She went to the Archbishop’s, covered with a great hood, and, when she left him, she amused herself with a variety of lovers.

Great people have the bad habit of talking very indiscreetly before their servants.  M. de Gontaut once said these words covertly, as he thought, to the Duc de ——­, “That measures had been taken which would, probably, have the effect of determining the Archbishop to go to Rome, with a Cardinal’s hat; and that, if he desired it, he was to have a coadjutor.”

A very plausible pretext had been found for making this proposition, and for rendering it flattering to the Archbishop, and agreeable to his sentiments.  The affair had been very adroitly begun, and success appeared certain.  The King had the air, towards the Archbishop, of entire unconsciousness of what was going on.  The negotiator acted as if he were only following the suggestions of his own mind, for the general good.  He was a friend of the Archbishop, and was very sure of a liberal reward.  A valet of the Duc de Gontaut, a very handsome young fellow, had perfectly caught the sense of what was spoken in a mysterious manner.  He was one of the lovers of the lady of the hundred louis a year, and had heard her talk of the Archbishop, whose relation she pretended to be.  He thought he should secure her good graces by informing her that great efforts were being made to induce her patron to reside at Rome, with a view to get him away from Paris.  The lady instantly told the Archbishop, as she was afraid of losing her pension if he went.  The information squared so well wit the negotiation then on foot, that the Archbishop had no doubt of its truth.  He cooled, by degrees, in his conversations with the negotiator, whom he regarded as a traitor, and ended by breaking with him.  These details were not known till long afterwards.  The lover of the lady having been sent to the Bicetre, some letters were found among his papers, which gave a scent of the affair, and he was made to confess the rest.

In order not to compromise the Duc de Gontaut, the King was told that the valet had come to a knowledge of the business from a letter which he had found in his master’s clothes.  The King took his revenge by humiliating the Archbishop, which he was enabled to do by means of the information he had obtained concerning the conduct of the lady, his protegee.  She was found guilty of swindling, in concert with her beloved valet; but, before her punishment was inflicted, the Lieutenant of Police was ordered to lay before Monseigneur a full account of the conduct of his relation and pensioner.  The Archbishop had nothing to object to in the proofs which were submitted to him; he said, with perfect calmness,