One of the least respectable of the French nobles was the Duc d'Aiguillon.

As Governor of Brittany, he had behaved with notorious cowardice in the Seven Years' War.

He had since been, if possible, still more dishonored by charges of oppression, peculation, and subornation, on which the authorities of the province had prosecuted him, and which the Parisian Parliament had pronounced to be established.

But no kind of infamy was a barrier to the favor of Louis XV.

He cancelled the resolution of the Parliament, and showed such countenance to the culprit that d'Aiguillon, who was both ambitious and covetous, conceived the idea of supplanting Choiseul in the Government.