[Footnote 51: His mother's ideas in this matter seem to have followed the liberality of the prevailing fashion. In an unsigned letter to Madame d'Argenson's sister, the Marquise de Balleroy, we come across the following passage: "Il vient d'y avoir un grand changement entre plusieurs nobles dames et messieurs, tant de la ville que de la cour.... Madame d'Argenson, vacante par la mort du chevalier d'Oppède, a choisi pour consolation le marquis d'Alleurs, jeune homme d'une discrétion au-dessus de son âge" (December 27, 1717). As we have seen, her husband did not go comfortless. See p.16.] [Footnote 52: Journal (Rathery), I. p. 15.] [Footnote 53: A number of d'Argenson's early drawings are preserved in the Library of the Arsenal (MS. 6164). They are distinguished chiefly by care of execution, and a natural loyalty to the ancestral domain. They consist principally of views of the family seats in Touraine.] [Footnote 54: Journal (Rathery), I. p. 16.] [Footnote 55: Ibid., I. p. 17.] [Footnote 56: Émond, "Histoire du Collège Louis-le-Grand."] [Footnote 57: "Des gens du monde à bonnes fortunes" (Journal, Rathery, I. p. 17).] [Footnote 58: Ibid., I. p. 17.] [Footnote 59: Ibid., I. p. 17. The metaphor is of d'Argenson's compounding.] [Footnote 60: The man who is known to history for having reviled the young Voltaire, now one of d'Argenson's schoolfellows, as the future coryphæus of deism in France.] [Footnote 61: We are indebted to St. Simon for this explanation of the young d'Argensons' escape. See "Mémoires," XIII. pp. 213, 214. The incident aptly illustrates the mysterious power which the Chief of Police exercised.] [Footnote 62: "Je me trouvais trop sot de n'en avoir profité, et j'en ai eu depuis de longs repentirs" (Journal, Rathery, I. p. 19).] [Footnote 63: "L'épopée royale" (Arsène Houssaye, "La Régence," p. 4).] [Footnote 64: See Martin, "Histoire de France," XIV. pp. 366-617.] [Footnote 65: See p. 15; St. Simon's "Mémoires," VII. p. 71; and Fontenelle, I. p. 315.] [Footnote 66: With this, the most famous society of the time, d'Argenson was only remotely connected. He tells us ["Loisirs d'un Ministre," I. p. 187 (1785)] that he had met and talked with Chaulieu occasionally at the Duchesse de Maine's, whither the "Anacreon of the Temple" was attracted by his passion for the famous Mdlle. de Launay.] [Footnote 67: _E.g._, Journal (Rathery), I. p. 186.] [Footnote 68: Ibid., I. p. 6, _cf._ p. 16.] [Footnote 69: See p. 17., _cf._ Journal (Rathery), I. p. 42.] [Footnote 70: See p. 16., _cf._ St. Simon, XIV. p. 315.] [Footnote 71: We are continually sensible of the sulphurous atmosphere through which Marc René d'Argenson is seen in contemporary memoirs.]