A first impression that the brain of the writer is haunted by some grotesque chimera, and that his political prospects are the pure creation of his own vanity and ambition, proves upon investigation to be false. There existed at Court during this period an active and formidable party, bent upon overthrowing the Cardinal; and for six years there was not a single month when Fleury's position might not have been imperilled by a moment of manliness on the part of the King. That moment--it was an amiable fondness--was constantly expected;[240] and had it followed upon any of the passages of d'Argenson's Journal, what appears as mere fatuous aspiration might be read as the words of truth and soberness. It is, moreover, reasonable to suggest that had the writer been more intimately conversant with the world and its ways, he would never have written one-tenth of what he felt; and that, had he not been the author of some of the loftiest and profoundest truths which political morality has ever uttered, his violences and excitements would have remained in the obscurity in which such accidents should be privileged to rest. But there is another question involved, the question whether his criticism is the mere outcome of factious opposition, or is the wise and just conviction of a patriot and an honest man. A brief examination will suffice. He pronounced against the men in power, and history has endorsed his verdict. Among the six ministers who carried the train of Cardinal Fleury, there was not one whose name has not to be sought for in his despatches, or who was qualified to be his own head clerk. The only man who, by the duration and the vicissitudes of his career, has secured a precarious place in history, is M. de Maurepas. So much for the men; we have yet to see whether d'Argenson's estimate of the general administration could equally boast the warrant of fact.