To explain this pretension of M. de Luxembourg, I must give some details respecting him and the family whose name he bore.  He was the only son of M. de Bouteville, and had married a descendant of Francois de Luxembourg, Duke of Piney, created Peer of France in 1581.  It was a peerage which, in default of male successors, went to the female, but this descendant was not heir to it.  She was the child of a second marriage, and by a first marriage her mother had given birth to a son and a daughter, who were the inheritors of the peerage, both of whom were still living.  The son was, however, an idiot, had been declared incapable of attending to his affairs, and was shut up in Saint Lazare, at Paris.  The daughter had taken the veil, and was mistress of the novices at the Abbaye-aux-Bois.  The peerage had thus, it might almost be said, become extinct, for it was vested in an idiot, who could not marry (to prevent him doing so, he had been made a deacon, and he was bound in consequence to remain single), and in a nun, who was equally bound by her vows to the same state of celibacy.

When M. de Bouteville, for that was his only title then, married, he took the arms and the name of Luxembourg.  He did more.  By powerful influence—­notably that of his patron the Prince de Conde—­he released the idiot deacon from his asylum, and the nun from her convent, and induced them both to surrender to him their possessions and their titles.  This done, he commenced proceedings at once in order to obtain legal recognition of his right to the dignities he had thus got possession of.  He claimed to be acknowledged Duc de Piney, with all the privileges attached to that title as a creation of 1581.  Foremost among these privileges was that of taking precedence of all dukes whose title did not go back so far as that year.  Before any decision was given either for or against this claim, he was made Duc de Piney by new letters patent, dating from 1662, with a clause which left his pretensions to the title of 1581 by no means affected by this new creation.  M. de Luxembourg, however, seemed satisfied with what he had obtained, and was apparently disposed to pursue his claim no further.  He was received as Duke and Peer in the Parliament, took his seat in the last rank after all the other peers, and allowed his suit to drop.  Since then he had tried successfully to gain it by stealth, but for several years nothing more had been heard of it.  Now, however, he recommenced it, and with every intention, as we soon found, to stop at no intrigue or baseness in order to carry his point.

Nearly everybody was in his favour.  The Court, though not the King, was almost entirely for him; and the town, dazzled by the splendour of his exploits, was devoted to him.  The young men regarded him as the protector of their debauches; for, notwithstanding his age, his conduct was as free as theirs.  He had captivated the troops and the general officers.