No sooner did that energetic lady hear of the crime that had been committed and of the rumours that were in circulation concerning La Jonchère and Le Blanc, than she resolved to employ every means in her power to get to the bottom of the affair. Fortune favoured her quest, in bringing her allies, wealthy, enterprising, and capable, and as determined to compass the ruin of the Minister for War as she was herself. Quite apart from the Condé faction, Le Blanc possessed many enemies. Of these the most powerful were the four brothers Pâris, the famous bankers, who, after the Mississippi crash, had been entrusted by the Regent with the task of restoring the public credit. In the days before they had attained their present eminence, the Pâris had been in business as army-contractors, and Le Blanc, at that time Intendant of Flanders, had caused the third brother, Pâris-Le Montagne, to be arrested on a charge of rendering fraudulent accounts. More recently become Minister for War, he had accused the ablest of the four, Pâris-Duverney, of infringing the edicts forbidding the export of gold, and, though Duverney had succeeded in exculpating himself, both he and his brothers were provisionally banished from the realm. Hence, the bankers hated Le Blanc and had sworn to be avenged on him as soon as they were able. The task of re-establishing the finances which had been entrusted to them, and which they conducted with undeniable skill, of course included an examination of the accounts of the public services. Scarcely had they begun to investigate those of the Ministry for War than they discovered such flagrant irregularities as to leave little room for doubt that a system of wholesale robbery prevailed. They immediately drew up a report to that effect and despatched it to the Regent, but, in their eagerness to bring their enemy to account, they had not waited to substantiate the charges they made; and Philippe d’Orléans, with whom Le Blanc was just then in high favour, excused himself from moving in the matter, on the ground that the Minister for War had rendered undoubted service to the State, and was extremely popular with the Army, and that, in the present critical condition of affairs, it would be better to watch his future conduct than to criticize his past acts. The bankers were greatly mortified by this repulse. Nevertheless, they were too embittered against Le Blanc, and too apprehensive of reprisals on his part, to abandon the struggle; and they accordingly began to look about them for some powerful ally, whose assistance might enable them to resume it with some prospect of success.