In the same year the comte de Fuentes, ambassador from Spain to the court of Louis XV, took leave of us. He was replaced by the comte d'Aranda, who was in a manner in disgrace with his royal master: this nobleman arrived preceded by a highly flattering reputation. In the first place, he had just completed the destruction of the Jesuits, and this was entitling him to no small thanks and praises from encyclopedists. Every one knows those two lines of Voltaire's--"Aranda dans l'Espagne instruisant les fideles, A l'inquisition vient de rogner les ailes." "Aranda in Spain instructing the faithful at the Inquisition has just clipped wings."--Gutenberg ed.
The simplicity of comte d'Aranda indemnified us in some degree for the haughty superciliousness of his predecessor. Although no longer young, he still preserved all the tone and vigor of his mind, and only the habit which appeared to have been born with him of reflecting, gave him a slow and measured tone in speaking.
His reserved and embarrassed manners were but ill-calculated to show the man as he really was, and it required all the advantages of intimacy to see him in his true value. You may attach so much more credit to what I say of this individual, as Ican only add, that he was by no means one of my best friends.
When Louis XV heard of the nomination of the comte d'Aranda to the embassy from Spain to France, he observed to me,"The king of Spain gets rid of his Choiseul by sending him to me.""Then why not follow so excellent an example, sire?" replied I; "and since your Choiseul is weary of Chanteloup, why not command him upon some political errand to the court of Madrid.""Heaven preserve me from such a thing," exclaimed Louis XV. "Such a man as he is ought never to quit the kingdom, and I have been guilty of considerable oversight to leave him the liberty of so doing. But to return to comte d'Aranda; he has some merit Iunderstand; still I like not that class of persons around me; they are inexorable censors, who condemn alike every action of my life."However, not the king's greatest enemy could have found fault with his manner of passing his leisure hours. A great part of each day was occupied in a mysterious manufacture of cases for relics, and one of his <valets de chambre>, named Turpigny, was intrusted with the commission of purchasing old shrines and reliquaries; he caused the sacred bones, or whatever else they contain, to be taken out by Grandelatz, one of his almoners, re-adjusted, and then returned to new cases. These reliquaries were distributed by him to his daughters, or any ladies of the court of great acknowledged piety. When I heard of this I mentioned it to the king, who wished at first to conceal the fact; but, as he was no adept at falsehood or disguise, he was compelled to admit the fact.
"I trust, sire," said I, "that you will bestow one of your prettiest and best-arranged reliquaries on me.""No, no," returned he, hastily, "that cannot be.""And why not?" asked I.
"Because," answered he, "it would be sinful of me. Ask anything else in my power to bestow, and it shall be yours."This was no hypocrisy on the part of Louis XV, who, spite of his somewhat irregular mode of life, professed to hold religion in the highest honor and esteem; to all that it proscribed he paid the submission of a child. We had ample proofs of this in the sermons preached at Versailles by the abbe de Beauvais, afterwards bishop of Senetz.
This ecclesiastic, filled with an inconsiderate zeal, feared not openly to attack the king in his public discourses; he even went so far as to interfere with many things of which he was not a competent judge, and which by no means belonged to his jurisdiction:
in fact, there were ample grounds for sending the abbe to the Bastille. The court openly expressed its dissatisfaction at this audacity, and for my own part I could not avoid evincing the lively chagrin it caused me. Yet, would you believe it, Louis XVdeclared, in a tone from which there was no appeal, that this abbe had merely done his duty, and that those who had been less scrupulous in the performance of theirs, would do well to be silent on the subject. This was not all; the cardinal de la Roche Aymon, his grand almoner, refused to sanction the nomination of M. de Beauvais to the bishopric, under the pretext of his not being nobly descended.
M. de Beyons, bishop of Carcassone, a prelate of irreproachable character, was deeply distressed to find that the want of birth would exclude M. de Beauvais from the dignities of his holy profession. He went to discuss the matter with the grand almoner, who again advanced his favorite plea for excluding M. de Beauvais.
"My lord," replied M. de Beyons, "if I believed that nobility of descent were the chief requisite for our advancement in our blessed calling, I would trample my crosier under foot, and renounce for ever all church dignities."M. de Beyons sought the king, and loudly complained to him of the infatuation and obstinacy of M. de la Roche Aymon. Louis XVhowever commanded that M. de Beauvais should be appointed to the first vacant see, and when the grand almoner repeated his objections to the preferment, the king answered, "Monsieur le cardinal, in the days of our blessed Saviour the apostles had no need to present their genealogical tree, duly witnessed and attested. It is my pleasure to make M. de Beauvais a bishop;let that end the discussion of the matter."The command was too peremptory to admit of any course but instant and entire submission.