Immediately a score of suitors
presented themselves; the preference was given to the comte de
Bourbon Busset as the person most calculated in every respect to
answer our purpose; he possessed elegant manners, an unblemished
reputation, and a descent so illustrious as to be traced even to
the reigning family. No sooner were the celebrations of this
marriage over, than I procured the formal appointment of madame
de Bourbon Busset to the post of lady in waiting to the new
princess. This nomination tended greatly to increase the high
opinion entertained of the judgment and discrimination of the
comtesse de Forcalquier, and you may easily believe, from the f
friendship I bore this lady, that I fully entered into her triumph
on the occasion.
When the comtesse de Bourbon Busset came to return me her
acknowledgments for what I had done, she accompanied it with a
request for a fresh interference on my part: this was to obtain
for her husband the title of duke and peer. Accordingly I
mentioned her wishes to the king, observing at the same time how
very surprising it was that one so nearly related to the house of
Bourbon should not have reached the honors of the ducal peerage:
to which Louis XV replied, that he had no desire to increase the
number of princes of the blood, of whom there were quite sufficient
of legitimate birth without placing the illegitimate upon the same
footing; that Louis XIV had been a sufficient warning of the folly
of acting too indulgently towards these latter, who were only so
many additional enemies to the royal authority.
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