The iniquitous regime of the
Intendant, which had pleaded the war as its justification, must
close, the Bourgeois thought, under the new conditions of peace.
The hateful monopoly of the Grand Company must be overthrown by the
constitutional action of the Honnetes Gens, and its condemnation by
the Parliament of Paris, to which an appeal would presently be
carried, it was hoped, would be secured.
The King was quarreling with the Jesuits. The Molinists were hated
by La Pompadour, and he was certain His Majesty would never hold a
lit de justice to command the registration of the decrees issued in
his name by the Intendant of New France after they had been in form
condemned by the Parliament of Paris.
The Bourgeois still reclined very still on his easy chair. He was
not asleep. In the daytime he never slept. His thoughts, like the
dame's, reverted to Pierre. He meditated the repurchase of his
ancestral home in Normandy and the restoration of its ancient honors
for his son.
Personal and political enmity might prevent the reversal of his
own unjust condemnation, but Pierre had won renown in the recent
campaigns.
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