"Our Court of Parlement has received a scurvy compliment." It was a question of money, and they "desired explanations." The Regent replied "that it would be a strange thing if the factious opposition of the Parlement were to arrest the course of those advantageous measures which he wished to secure for the public; that we had no right to meddle with matters of finance; and that he would not suffer the royal authority to be made light of so long as it were entrusted to his care."[83] He appears to be recording the first brush between the forces of the Parlement and of the Crown, and the opening of the hot battle which ended, exactly three years later (August 28, 1720), at Pontoise.[84] The young councillor was soon to be even more deeply interested in the progress of events. Five months afterwards (January 28, 1718) his father became Warden of the Seals, and President of the Council of Finance; and it was soon plain, from the threatening attitude of the Parlement, that their redoubtable enemy had not entered the ministry one moment too soon. For the present, indeed, the Government was content to hold its hand; for Dubois, the demon of the play, had not yet returned from London, where he was sedulously wooing the Hanoverian interest.[85] As for d'Argenson, his heart wavered 'twixt love for his father and loyalty to his brethren of the long robe. He had recourse to argument--for the Marquis was by this time impressed with his son's substantial worth.[86] "A tout ce que je lui exposai" the black-bearded minister had but one reply: "My good fellow! that Parlement of yours, has it any troops? For our part, we have 150,000 men! That's what it all comes to." "Et voilà parler en grand homme!" exclaims his son,[87] with an admiration which is the more natural for its inconsistency. But the "grand homme" was preparing to act. On August 16th Dubois arrived in Paris bearing a treaty of alliance with England; and the great _coup d'état_ which crushed the pretensions of the Parlement and silenced the opposition to Law, followed upon the 26th.[88]