The King'sfavorite, the Earl of Bute,
supplanted Holdernesse as Secretary of State for the Northern Department;
Charles Townshend, an opponent of Pitt, was made Secretary of War; Legge,
Chancellor of the Exchequer, was replaced by Viscount Barrington, who was
sure for the King; while a place in the Cabinet was also given to the Duke
of Bedford, one of the few men who dared face the formidable Minister.
It was the policy of the King and his following to abandon Prussia,
hitherto supported by British subsidies, make friends with Austria and
Russia at her expense, and conclude a separate peace with France.
France was in sore need of peace. The infatuation that had
turned her from her own true interest to serve the passions
of Maria Theresa and the Czarina Elizabeth had brought military
humiliation and financial ruin. Abbe de Bernis, Minister of Foreign
Affairs, had lost the favor of Madame de Pompadour, and had been
supplanted by the Duc de Choiseul. The new Minister had gained his
place by pleasing the favorite; but he kept it through his own ability
and the necessities of the time. The Englishman Stanley, whom Pitt
sent to negotiate with him, drew this sketch of his character: "Though
he may have his superiors, not only in experience of business,
but in depth and refinement as a statesman, he is a person
of as bold and daring a spirit as any man whatever in our
country or in his own. Madame Pompadour has ever been looked upon by
all preceding courtiers and ministers as their tutelary deity, under
whose auspices only they could exist, and who was as much out of
their reach as if she were of a superior class of beings; but this
Minister is so far from being in subordination to her influence that
he seized the first opportunity of depriving her not of an equality,
but of any share of power, reducing her to the necessity of applying
to him even for those favors that she wants for herself and her dependents.
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