Naturally, their thoughts turned in the direction of the Duc de Bourbon, but, since they had been the most strenuous opponents of his _protégé_ Law, and they feared that the prince might harbour some resentment against them on that account, they hesitated to approach him. Great therefore was their satisfaction, when one day they received a letter from Madame de Prie proposing an alliance between them and the House of Condé against the common enemy. The alliance was soon concluded, and, supported openly by the whole weight of the Condé influence, and encouraged in secret by Dubois, whose jealousy of Le Blanc Madame de Prie had artfully fanned, the Pâris brothers again advanced to the attack, and demanded that a commission should be appointed to investigate the accounts of the Ministry for War. Their demand was conceded, the commissioners had been already nominated, and every one was expecting to hear that Le Blanc and La Jonchère had been summoned to appear before them, when the faction opposed to the Condés, with the Duc de Chartres, the Prince de Conti, and the legitimated princes at its head, started a violent agitation in favour of Le Blanc, and carried the war into the enemy’s camp by accusing the Pâris brothers of having themselves despoiled the State. This furnished the Regent with a pretext for intervening between the accused and justice, and the meeting of the commission was postponed _sine die_. Madame de Prie, however, did not despair. She had made sure of the support of Dubois, who in August, 1722, had been named _ministre principal_--the same title which had been given the Cardinal de Richelieu--and her several agents were everywhere at work. Daily the evidence against Le Blanc was accumulating in her hands; towards the end of the spring of 1723, it was so overwhelming that she felt that it would be impossible for the Regent to ignore it. She had ascertained that, apart from their official relations, Le Blanc and La Jonchère were on terms of the closest intimacy; that the latter had a pretty and coquettish wife, whom he had complacently surrendered to his chief, being himself in love with the wife of the unfortunate Sandrier; that he lived in almost princely style, and had, moreover, advanced large sums of money to the Comte de Belle-Isle, to defray the cost of a magnificent hôtel which he was building on the banks of the Seine, opposite the Tuileries; that, on learning of the death of Sandrier, Le Blanc had shown so much emotion that every one present was astonished, and that a day or two later he fell ill and was obliged to take to his bed. And finally, she discovered that it was practically certain that, in robbing the State, Le Blanc and La Jonchère had been acting with the connivance of the Palais-Royal, and that a considerable portion of the spoil had found its way into the Regent’s coffers.