We can form no just estimate of d'Argenson's capacity as a statesman without some clear ideas of his position as a minister. He had entered office burdened with two disabilities, the cause of which it has been the most important of duties to lay bare. He had no aptitude for court intrigue; he had no power of confronting opposition and sternly frowning it down. Unable to win, he neglected the courtiers; unable to coerce his enemies in the Ministry, he was only too happy to avoid them. He was forced to rely upon the value of his services, and upon the esteem and confidence of the King. That he managed to secure that confidence, and to preserve it even at the moment of his fall, there is ample evidence to show. Relying upon the royal support, he did not hesitate to enforce those principles of policy which research and reflection had led him to embrace. He determined, so far as possible, to make his will felt; and the incapacity with which he was charged by Noailles and the anti-Prussian party in the Council was really incapacity to accept proposals at variance with every statesmanlike tradition. Without regard for the consequences to himself, he acted for what he thought to be the public interest--a process which no French statesman could then pursue without offending innumerable susceptibilities, and uniting every one, from the reigning favourite to the most insignificant chargé d'affaires, in a league of enmity against him. They all combined to convict him of incapacity and indiscretion; he passed among the courtiers as "Dunce d'Argenson";[374] and his eccentricities of manner gave occasion to caricatures which were carefully gathered up by that consummate chronicler of the unimportant, the Duc de Luynes. The persecution was too bitter to be inspired merely by contempt; and we have only to read the letters of Noailles and Saxe to know that they were directed, not to the dismissal of an incapable minister, but to the removal of a statesman who barred their path.[375]