"He told XVI.
"Mercy," is the expression in Brienne's own account, "that under a minister who, like me, had lost the favor of the public, he could not do any good." A court-intrigue at last decided the minister's fall.

The Count of Artois, egged on by Madame de Polignac, made urgent entreaties to the queen; she was attached to Brienne; she, however, resigned herself to giving him up, but with so many favors and such an exhibition of kindness towards all his family, that the public did not feel at all grateful to Marie Antoinette.

Already Brienne had exchanged the archbishopric of Toulouse for that of Sens, a much richer one.

"The queen offered me the hat and anything I might desire," writes the prelate, "telling me that she parted from me with regret, weeping at being obliged to do so, and permitting me to kiss her (_l'embrasser_) in token of her sorrow and her interest." "After having made the mistake of bringing him into the ministry," says Madame Campan [_Memoires,_ t.

i.
p.