There was nothing more certain than that the dauphin's death had been natural; but a dislike of the accused duke lingered in the king's mind, and he eluded compliance with his wife's request till she put it on entirely personal grounds, by declaring it to be humiliating to herself that one to whom she was under the deepest obligations as the negotiator of her own happy marriage should be under the king's displeasure without her being able to procure his pardon.

Louis felt the force of the appeal thus made to him.

"If she used that argument, he could deny her nothing," and the duke's sentence was remitted, though his royal patroness was unable to procure his re-admission to office.

Nor did Maria Teresa regret that she failed in that object; since she feared his restless character, and felt the alliance between the two countries safer in the hands of the new foreign secretary, the Count de Vergennes..