At last, affecting a confidence which he was far from feeling, he declared that Barillon must have been imposed upon by idle or malicious reports.

"I tell you," he said, "that the King will not dismiss me, and I will not resign.

I know him: he knows me; and I fear nobody." The Frenchman answered that he was charmed, that he was ravished to hear it, and that his only motive for interfering was a sincere anxiety for the prosperity and dignity of his excellent friend the Treasurer.

And thus the two statesmen parted, each flattering himself that he had duped the other.

[196] Meanwhile, in spite of all injunctions of secrecy, the news that the Lord Treasurer had consented to be instructed in the doctrines of Popery had spread fast through London.