1Ge Jeanette Needham. 
money in the most lavish fashion.“ He is credited with saying: 
“Voila pour boire a la santé du tiers-état et du duc d’Orleans!” 
Maleissye adds that one soldier to whom he gave a dozen livres 
carried them immediately to his captain. As a result, M. de 
Valady was pursued and arrested, but, because he was the son- 
in-law of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, deputy of the nobility from | 
Castelnaudary,” he was treated as crazy. Although the cir- 
cumstances were reported to the authorities, the king himself 
gave orders not to follow up the matter, and M. de Valady was 
soon at home again.” 
The under officers were fully aware of the conditions produced 
by such activities among their men, but, Maleissye asserts, 
declined to report their knowledge to the Duc de Chatelet, 
who had forfeited their confidence by his treatment of them. 
Even when he did learn the true situation, he lacked the neces- 
sary strength of character, in the judgment of Maleissye, to 
take measures that might have saved the guards.*’ 
44 Duquesnoy, I, 145; Staél-Holstein, 142; Maleissye, 24, 33; Besenval, 
II, 341; Correspondance d'un député . . . avec la Marquise de Crequy, Docu- 
ments inédits, Revue de la rév., II, 40. The first four name Laclos as an im- 
portant agent of the duke. Duquesnoy, Maleissye and the last-named source 
refer to Valady, or Valadi, as the name is sometimes spelled. Maleissye 
refers to a Chevalier d’Oraison also. Staél-Holstein gives the following as 
the entourage of the Duc d’Orléans: ‘‘ M. de la Touche, son chancelier, le 
duc de Biron, son ami, M. Silleri, son capitaine de gardes, et surtout M. de 
Laclos.” Then he refers to M. de Calonne as the London agent of the duke. 
There were rumors that English gold supplemented the resources of the Duc 
d’Orléans in fomenting popular demonstrations. 
4 Maleissye, 24; Correspondance d’un député .. . avec la Marquise de 
Crequy, Documents inédits, Revue de la rév., Il, 40. 
46 Maleissye, 24. 
47 Ibid , 19-20; Histoire parlementaire, I1, 29. The Histoire says of the 
disaffection: ‘‘ En méme temps, on apprit que les gardes avaient établi parmi 
eux une société secréte, dans laquelle ils s’engageaient 4 n’executer aucun des 
ordres qui leur seraient donnés, s’ils étaient contraires aux intéréts de l’as- 
semblée nationale; cette société avait ses conseils, qui s’assemblaient le soir . 
dans les casernes. Elle rédigeait des circulaires; et ce fut un de ces papiers, 
tombé dans les mains d’un officier, qui en révéla l’existence. Le soldat qui 
l’avait livre fut obligé de quitter le corps. Qui avait établi cette organisation? 
On lignore. Peut-étre était-ce un patriote ancien officier des gardes-fran- 
Gaises, et qui fut noté alors comme distribuant des brochures aux soldats.” 
246 
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