But the marriage had one beneficial, if unlooked for, result. The Duchesse de Saint-Simon, greatly against her inclination and that of her husband, was appointed lady-in-waiting to the new Duchess, and had assigned to her a set of apartments at Versailles, consisting of an antechamber and five rooms, each with a dark little cabinet opening out of it. In one of these Saint-Simon established himself with his books and his _bureau de travail_. It was an unrivalled post of observation, which his friends christened appropriately “his workshop.” Meanwhile his intimacy with Beauvillier and Chevreuse brought him into relations with the Duc de Bourgogne, and the only thorn in his felicity was the Cabale de Meudon, which he believed to be bent on his destruction. But from this he was delivered by the Dauphin’s death from small-pox in April, 1711. The next ten months were the happiest of his whole life at Court. His relations with the new Dauphin became more intimate, and in numerous private conversations he discussed with him projects of political reform. Then in 1712 the French Marcellus, the star of noble hopes and aspirations, followed his father to the grave. The blow hit Saint-Simon almost as hard as it did Fénelon. “The sense of my personal loss, the immeasurably greater loss of France, and above all the vanished figure of that incomparable Dauphin pierced my heart and paralysed my faculties.” Two years later he refers in melancholy accents to his changed position. Chevreuse, Beauvillier, and Boufflers were dead, Pontchartrain had retired from office, Chamillart was in disgrace. The one link left to him with the Court was the Duc d’Orléans, who by the death of the Duc de Berry in May, 1714, was marked out as the future regent of the kingdom. In spite of his unpopularity Saint-Simon, who had for some years now been on friendly terms with him, drew to him more closely. He reprobated his licentious and scandalous life, but he defended him against the false accusations of his enemies, and effectively countermined the intrigues of the party that was plotting against him in favour of the Duc du Maine. On Louis XIV’s death it was partly owing to Saint-Simon’s vehement and energetic insistence that Orléans roused himself from his habitual indolence and persuaded the _Parlement_ to set aside the testament of the late King, which, while it conferred on him the Regency, had put the real power in the hands of the Duc du Maine. Saint-Simon was made a member of the Council of Regency, and the introduction of departmental Councils, in place of the Secretaries of State, was more or less in accord with his own proposals.