The Duc de Choiseul had been ordered to restrain himself to his wife’s estate in Touraine, where he had built a magnificent castle. There, though overwhelmed with debts, he lived with an increase of profusion, retaining or affecting his constitutional spirits and levity. It was a new scene in France, a disgraced Minister still the object of veneration and love. It was as new to see the King unpopular, or, which in that country is synonymous, unfashionable. While Louis could scarcely assemble a Court round him and his mistress at Versailles, at Compiègne, the Princes of the Blood, at their several country seats, and the Duc de Choiseul at Chanteloup, were followed by throngs of company. The insult to the King was doubled by the disrespect paid to his intimations; for, as nobody was allowed to resort to Chanteloup without previously applying for his Majesty’s permission, to which demand this oracular response was generally given, “Je ne le defends ni le permets,” and as that oracle was interpreted, or pretended to be interpreted, into consent, the want of respect for his inclination could but be deemed contempt by a Prince so accustomed to have his very looks obeyed. The mode of visiting the Duke spread, and, for a mode, lasted long, nor was confined to his former friends; several persons of both sexes, many ladies whom he had loved, and others who had never loved him, affronted the King rather than be unfashionable, and the Duke, with too much vanity and too much indifference for his friends, encouraged the concourse; but, as may well be supposed, this triumph did but advance his and their destruction, of which the Prince of Beauvau was the first example.