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 I
can 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 I
understand; 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
, 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.
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