At Fontainebleau, hostilities were carried very high, but came to no decision. It was known, that though the Duc de Choiseul had staid so long with the mistress, he had rather exasperated than softened her. When they were partners at whist with the King, she made faces and shrugged up her shoulders at the Minister. The King disapproved this, and forbade it. One night after the Court’s return to Versailles, the Maréchal de Soubize, playing against her, said to her on her scoring two by honours, “Non, Madame, vous n’aviez pas les honneurs; vous n’aviez que le roi.” The King laughed, and so did the mistress violently; it being said without design, by Monsieur de Soubize, who was extremely decent, and not hostile to her. Had he been her friend, he could have decided the contest at once to the ruin of Choiseul; for Soubize was better than any man with the King; and, had he not wanted ambition, might have been minister himself. With all her antipathy to Monsieur de Choiseul, Madame de Mirepoix had too much parts not to be sensible of his, and of his engaging vivacity. One day, that to please her Madame du Barry was railing at the Duke, she caught herself, and said, “Mais comprenez vous, Madame, qu’on puisse tant hair un homme qu’on ne connoit pas?” Madame de Mirepoix replied, “Je le comprendois bien moins, Madame, si vous le commissiez”--as flattering and genteel a compliment as could be made by an enemy. The desperate state of the finances brought the Duke as near to his ruin as the Cabal could do. His new Comptroller-General, to whom he paid unbounded court, to give him spirits, could, as everybody had foreseen, produce no effectual plan; and though he offered one, it was rejected by the majority of the Council. The man, who was upright, desired leave to retire, said he had done his best, and had neither enriched himself nor his friends. The King ordered Choiseul to name another. Aware of the difficulty, and to avoid furnishing his enemies with a new handle for accusing him of miscarriage, he threw the burthen off himself, saying, it was the Chancellor’s business. Maupeou, the Chancellor, named the Abbé du Terray, who immediately set out, with a violence and rigour beyond example, not only lessening pensions and grants by the half, but striking at the interest on the debt; and was on the point of blowing up the credit of France entirely, especially with foreign countries. Choiseul probably inflamed the bankers of the Court; and then harangued so ably in Council against such breach of faith, that he carried it against the Comptroller, to make good their foreign engagements, the King himself saying, every man must tax himself, and that he himself had two thousand louis-d’ors, and would give them to support public credit.[20] This victory, and the clamours of the sufferers, endeared Choiseul more than ever to the nation. At the same time he gave a dangerous wound to his capital enemy, the Duc