At Versailles, Abbe de Bernis, who had lately become a cardinal, paid by his disgrace for the persistency he had shown in advising peace.

He was chatting with M.de Stahrenberg, the Austrian ambassador, when he received a letter from the king, sending him off to his abbey of St.Medard de Soissons.

He continued the conversation without changing countenance, and then, breaking off the conversation just as the ambassador was beginning to speak of business.

"It is no longer to me, sir," he said, "that you must explain yourself on these great topics; I have just received my dismissal from his Majesty." With the same coolness he quitted the court and returned, pending his embassy to Rome, to those elegant intellectual pleasures which suited him better than the crushing weight of a ministry in disastrous times, under an indolent and vain-minded monarch, who was governed by a woman as headstrong as she was frivolous and depraved.
Madame de Pompadour had just procured for herself a support in her obstinate bellicosity.

Cardinal Bernis was superseded in the ministry of foreign affairs by Count Stainville, who was created Duke of Choiseul.
After the death of Marshal Belle-Isle he exchanged the office for that of minister of war; with it he combined the ministry of the marine.