Dubois had for a long while comprehended that the higher dignities of the church could alone bring him to the grandeur of which he was ambitious; yet everything about him seemed to keep them out of his reach, his scandalous life, his perpetual intrigues, the baseness, not of his origin, but of his character and conduct; nevertheless, the see of Cambrai having become vacant by the death of Cardinal de la Tremoille, Dubois conceived the hope of obtaining it.

"Impudent as he was," says St.Simon, "great as was the sway he had acquired over his master, he found himself very much embarrassed, and masked his effrontery by ruse; he told the Duke of Orleans that he had dreamed a funny dream, that he was Archbishop of Cambrai.

The Regent, who saw what he was driving at, answered him in a tone of contempt, 'Thou, Archbishop of Cambrai! thou hast no thought of such a thing ?' And the other persisting, he bade him think of all the scandal of his life.

Dubois had gone too far to stop on so fine a road, and quoted to him precedents, of which there were, unfortunately, only too many.

The Duke of Orleans, less moved by such bad reasons than put to it how to resist the suit of a man whom he was no longer wont to dare gainsay in anything, sought to get out of the affair.