For once such duplicity imposed on nobody; nor did expected popularity follow. Could there be a greater farce than the Bedfords acting jealousy of national honour, when they knew our inability, and had concurred in sacrificing our glory and interest at the end of the most flourishing war? It was only ridiculous that the Duke of Bedford cried out for war, and opposed the land-tax that was to carry it on! With equal consistence, that faction celebrated Lord Weymouth for retiring _unplaced_ and _unpensioned_,--him, who ruined his tradesmen, paid nobody, had sold a place that was _not_ vacant, during only six weeks that he was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and of which the purchaser could not recover a shilling; and who had now obtained the Postmaster’s place for his brother!--but could any good come out of Nazareth? On the 22nd the Parliament was adjourned for the holidays; and on the 28th, a courier brought advice of the Duc de Choiseul’s fall, of which I am enabled to give some authentic anecdotes. The Duke’s extreme indiscretion in keeping no measures with Madame du Barry, the new mistress, has already been mentioned. His folly was augmented by having had the fate of his predecessor, the Cardinal de Bernis,[139] before his eyes. The Cardinal, from a starving, sonnet-making Abbé, had been rewarded for his flatteries by Madame de Pompadour with the red hat, and by being made Prime Minister; both by her favour. He was no sooner at the height of his fortune, than he not only slighted her, but as an excuse for not visiting her, pleaded that his rank in the Church forbade his frequenting a woman of her character,--as if the back stairs to the apartment of a kept mistress were an honourable ascent for a priest, but her levée a disgrace! His ingratitude and her revenge were complete in about six weeks. The Duc de Choiseul, who certainly was not often troubled with scruples, and who had risen by the countenance of Madame de Pompadour, now influenced by two women[140] of characters as blemished as the mistress’s, affected delicacy about Madame du Barry, who though a common prostitute, at least had not the confidence to act scruples. Yet, though she was the instrument by which his ruin was effected, the crisis turned on an affair of a public nature.