As I write these last words, on the 16th of November 1841, my window, which looks west over the gardens of the Foreign Missions, is open: it is six o'clock in the morning; I see the pale and spreading moon; it is sinking over the spire of the Invalides scarce revealed by the first gold ray from the East: one would say that the old world was ending and the new commencing. I behold the reflections of a dawn of which I shall not see the sun rise. It but remains for me to sit down by the edge of my grave; and then I shall descend boldly, crucifix in hand, to Eternity. [399] This book was written partly in 1834 and partly in 1841, from the 25th of September to the 16th of November.--T. [400] Chateaubriand is a year out in his calculation; but, as has been said before and as he himself has stated, he was an indifferent arithmetician.--T. [401] 1 September 1715.--T. [402] Antonio Giudice, Duca di Giovenazza, Principe di Cellamare (1657-1733), of Neapolitan birth, was Spanish Ambassador to the Court of France in 1715. He became the soul of a conspiracy directed against the Duc D'Orléans and having for its object the transfer of the Regency to Philip V. King of Spain. But the plot was discovered and Cellamare made to leave the Kingdom in 1718.--T. [403] _Cf._ Vol. V., p. 15, n. 5. Alberoni's fall occurred in 1719.--T. [404] Guillaume Cardinal Dubois, Archbishop of Cambrai (1656-1723), became Foreign Minister in 1717, was useful to the Regent in discovering Cellamare's conspiracy and received the See of Cambrai, as his reward, in 1718. He became Prime Minister in 1722. Dubois added to the Court of the Regency such depravity as there was room for.--T. [405] John Law (1671-1729), the Scotch financier, became French Controller-general of Finance in May 1720. He was the inventor of a marvellous "System," which collapsed in May of the same year, and Law with it. He was driven from France and his estates confiscated.--T. [406] Louis Henri Duc de Bourbon (1692-1740), known as M. le Duc, was Prime Minister from 1723 to 1726, when Fleury obtained his banishment to Chantilly. [407] André Hercule Cardinal de Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus (1653-1743), was seventy-three years old, when he became Prime Minister, and remained in power till his death, at the age of ninety.--T. [408] The War of the Polish Succession.--B. [409] 29 May 1734 (_Cf._ Vol. I., p. 13).--T. [410] Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, Maréchal Duc de Belle-Isle (1684-1761), father of the Comte de Gisors and grandson of Fouquet (_vide infra_), created a marshal of France, after meritorious services, in 1700. His finest feat of arms was his masterly retreat from Prague in 1742. He was Minister for War from 1757 till his death.--T. [411] The French were defeated by the Brunswickers, at Crefeld, on the 23rd of June 1758.--T.