"I know what you have come to tell me," said the latter to the Duke of La Vrilliere, who was usually charged with this painful mission, "but I am and shall continue to be chancellor of France," and he kept his seat whilst addressing the minister, in accordance with his official privilege.

He handed to the duke the casket of seals, which the latter was to take straight to M.de Miromesnil.

"I had gained the king a great cause," said Maupeou; "he is pleased to reopen a question which was decided; as to that he is master." Imperturbable and haughty as ever, he retired to his estate at Thuit, near the Andelys, where he drew up a justificatory memorandum of his ministry, which he had put into the king's hands, without ever attempting to enter the court or Paris again; he died in the country, at the outset of the revolutionary storms, on the 29th of July, 1792, just as he had made the State a patriotic present of 800,000 livres.

At the moment when the populace were burning him in effigy in the streets of Paris together with Abbe Terray, when he saw the recall of the parliamentarians, and the work of his whole life destroyed, he repeated with his usual coolness: "If the king is pleased to lose his kingdom--well, he is master." Abbe Terray had been less proud, and was more harshly treated.

It was in vain that he sought to dazzle the young king with ably prepared memorials.