au this year, Puysieux came
back from Switzerland, having been sent there as ambassador. Puysieux
was a little fat man, very agreeable, pleasant, and witty, one of the
best fellows in the world, in fact. As he had much wit, and thoroughly
knew the King, he bethought himself of making the best of his position;
and as his Majesty testified much friendship for him on his return, and
declared himself satisfied with his mission in Switzerland, Puysieux
asked if what he heard was not mere compliment, and whether he could
count upon it. As the King assured him that he might do so, Puysieux
assumed a brisk air, and said that he was not so sure of that, and that
he was not pleased with his Majesty.

"And why not?" said the King.

"Why not?" replied Puysieux; "why, because although the most honest man
in your realm, you have not kept to a promise you made me more than fifty
years ago."

"What promise?" asked the King.

"What promise, Sire?" said Puysieux; "you have a good memory, you cannot
have forgotten it. Does not your Majesty remember that one day, having
the honour to play at blindman's buff with you at my grandmother's, you
put your cordon bleu on my back, the better to hide yourself; and that
when, after the game, I restored it to you, you promised to give it me
when you became master; you have long been so, thoroughly master, and
nevertheless that cordon bleu is still to come."

The King, who recollected the circumstance, here burst out laughing, and
told Puysieux he was in the right, and that a chapter should be held on
the first day of the new year expressly for the purpose of receiving him
into the order. And so in fact it was, and Puysieux received the cordon
bleu on the day the King had named. This fact is not important, but it
is amusing. It is altogether singular in connection with a prince as
serious and as imposing as Louis XIV.; and it is one of those little
Court anecdotes which are curious.

Here is another more important fact, the consequences of which are still
felt by the State. Pontchartrain, Secretary of State for the Navy, was
the plague of it, as of all those who were under his cruel dependence.
He was a man who, with some-amount of ability, was disagreeable and
pedantic to an excess; who loved evil for its own sake; who was jealous
even of his father; who was a cruel tyrant towards his wife, a woman all
docility and goodness; who was in one word a monster, whom the King kept
in office o