Note 97 — Chapter II
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He had no sooner, therefore, irrevocably arrived at this decision, than he addressed a letter to the Regent, in which he requested her permission to retire from the Government; and, satisfied that his suit must prove successful, he calmly awaited her reply. Meanwhile, resolved that no reproach should be cast upon him after his departure, he demanded an audience of the King, in order to explain to him the exact state of the royal treasury, and the manner in which its contents had been diminished since the demise of his royal father; but as a private interview with a mere child would not have satisfactorily sufficed to accomplish this object, Sully produced his papers before all the members of the royal household; and while engaged in the necessary explanation, he remarked that the antiquated fashion of his costume, which he had not changed for years, had excited the hilarity of the younger courtiers. He suddenly paused, and after glancing coldly round the giddy circle, looked fixedly at the young monarch, and said with a dignity which chased in an instant every inclination to mirth in the bystanders: "Sire, I am too old to change my habits with every passing wind. When the late King, your father of glorious memory, did me the honour of conferring with me upon state affairs, he was in the habit of previously clearing the apartment of all buffoons and mountebanks." [97]