However, it was not yet known whether the favorite would not end by being disgraced. Her enemy, Count d’Argenson, seemed to possess the intimate confidence of the sovereign. The King had given him his keys that he might look for the secret papers at Trianon, and the Count’s brother, the Marquis d’Argenson, wrote in his Memoirs, January 15, 1757, ten days after the assault: “It is true that since the assassination of the King, the Marquise has not seen His Majesty for a single instant. She endures her disgrace by concealing it; but little by little she will be abandoned. She has neither seen nor received a billet from His Majesty, who no longer seems to think of her. Meanwhile the King sees his confessor, Père Desmarets, every day, and has made declarations of friendship and good conduct to the Queen. All this smacks of a change at court. M. the Dauphin has entered the Council and is gaining credit there.’ The former Minister of Foreign Affairs was deluding himself. On the very day when he wrote these lines, the Marquise saw Louis XV. again and resumed her former domination, as the Minister of War was presently to become aware. “The great talent at court,” says the Baron de Besenval, “is to be a good judge of circumstances and know how to profit by them. M. d’Argenson deceived himself in this; he should have reflected that the ill-grounded terror of the King might pass as quickly as it came, and that he would seek to resume power as promptly as he had abandoned it. This is the way with all feeble souls. The minister forgot this truth. In the first council held after the attempt on the King, M. d’Argenson proposed, in presence of M. the Dauphin, who presided, that the ministers should hold their deliberations in the apartments of this prince, as lieutenant-general of the kingdom, until the complete recovery of the King. It resulted from this fault that M. the Dauphin, who was not very susceptible of ambition, was not at all grateful to the minister for his proposal, and that the King, hardly convalescent as yet, found his heart again replenished with that displeasure which his son had always inspired in him; that he withdrew him from affairs and never forgave M. d’Argenson for the mark of devotion he had given him on this occasion. When one dares to be ungrateful, he ought at least to be more adroit about it.” As Baron de Besenval again remarks, “a mistress removed is not yet to be despised, and love has its caprices and returns as prompt as those of fortune.” Madame de Pompadour stayed where she was. The Minister of War and the Keeper of the Seals were sacrificed to her. The favorite made a tearful scene in presence of Louis XV. One would have thought she was going to faint. Madame du Hausset went to fetch her some of Hoffman’s drops. The King himself arranged the dose with sugar and presented it to the Marquise in the most gracious manner. She ended by smiling and kissed the hand of the gallant monarch, who consoled her.