Once, when she was giving an informal breakfast with a dozen or more nobles as guests, she ordered the king to make the coffee. Amused, he obeyed. She took one sip of the royal-brewed beverage, then tossed the cup into the fireplace, exclaiming: "France, your coffee is as insipid as your talk!" All political matters she turned over to d'Aiguillon, who was the clique's spokesman. To please him, and to "get even" for old scores, she caused the ruin of Choiseul. The mode of Choiseul's downfall is interesting as a side light on court intrigue. The clique taught Marie how to poison the king's ever-suspicious mind against the prime minister, and she did so with great success. Thanks to her, Louis was held to believe that Choiseul, feeling his power over the monarch slipping, was planning a war scare with Spain, so that he could prove his seeming worth to the kingdom of France by dispelling the cloud. The clique--having access, through a spy, to all of Choiseul's correspondence--resorted to a fairly ingenious trick. At Marie's suggestion, Choiseul's secretary was summoned to the palace. He was in the clique's pay. Before the king, he was questioned as to what he knew about Choiseul's affairs. The man, with an air of mystery, answered that he knew nothing of them, but that he would give his majesty one hint--let the king request Choiseul to write a letter to Spain, assuring that nation of France's peaceful intent. Should Choiseul do so without comment, it would show he was not plotting a war scare, as charged. But should he hesitate--well, what could that prove, instead? The plotters already knew that Choiseul had that very day sent a letter to Spain, proposing the mutual signing of a declaration of peace between the nations. The king requested his minister to send a letter that was almost identical with the one he had already written and dispatched. Naturally Choiseul hesitated. And the work was done. Yet, out of careless good nature--she would not have bothered to harm anybody, politically or otherwise, if she had had her own way--Marie insisted that the king settle a liberal pension on the fallen minister; this despite the fact that Choiseul and his sister, Madame de Grammont, had both worked with all their might and main to block her rise. She was good, too--as they all were--to her mother. She presented the horrible old woman with two or three estates and a generous income. She did the same for her titular husband, Guillaume, Comte du Barry. Her lightest fancy was enough to make or wreck any Frenchman. Everybody, high or low, was at her mercy. People of the bluest blood vied for chances to win her favor.