Note 45 — VII. 1783. OSCILLATES BETWEEN PARIS AND VERSAILLES.—SENDS OUT BEGGING LETTERS AND PETITIONS.—FAINTS IN MADAME’S SALLE D’ATTENTE.—DESPAIR.

Unpublished Autograph Letter of the Countess de la Motte in the collection of M. Feuillet de Conches. This letter is endorsed “M. Lenoir. The concession asked is impossible. Can they obtain other help? 18th May, 1783.” M. Lenoir was lieutenant-general of police at this period, but—owing, it is said, to the despotic way in which he acted while occupying this position, coupled with his abject devotion to the resentments of the great, which induced the Duke de Nivernois to style him the first slave in the kingdom—he was subsequently rewarded with the post of president of the administration of finances, and eventually with the more lucrative one of librarian to the king, a position for which it may be supposed his antecedents had hardly qualified him.