"He had taken his elevation like a sage," says St.Simon, "and it was as a sage too that he fell." "The important point," wrote the disgraced magistrate to his son, "is to be well with one's self." The Duke of Noailles had resigned his presidency of the council of finance; but, ever adroit, even in disgrace, he had managed to secure himself a place in the council of regency.

The seals were intrusted to M.d'Argenson, for some years past chief of police at Paris.

"With a forbidding face, which reminded one of the three judges of Hades, he made fun out of everything with excellence of wit, and he had established such order amongst that innumerable multitude of Paris, that there was no single inhabitant of whose conduct and habits he was not cognizant from day to day, with exquisite discernment in bringing a heavy or light hand to bear on every matter that presented itself, ever leaning towards the gentler side, with the art of making the most innocent tremble before him." [St.Simon, t.xv.

p.

387.] Courageous, bold, audacious in facing riots, and thereby master of the people, he was at the same time endowed with prodigious activity.