ar,
it enumerated the various secret alliances and agreements which he had
made with the princes of North Germany, whom a premature discovery must
place at the Emperor's mercy--it was necessary that I should draw up
the whole with my own hand, and with the utmost care and precaution.
This I did; and that nothing might be wanting to a memorial which I
regarded with justice as the most important of the many State papers
which it had fallen to my lot; to prepare, I spent seven days in
incessant labour upon it. It was not, therefore, until the third week
in August: that I was free to travel to Monceaux.

I found my quarters assigned to me in a pavilion called the Garden
House; and, arriving at supper time, sat down with my household with
more haste and less ceremony than was my wont. The same state of things
prevailed, I suppose, in the kitchen; for we had not been seated half
an hour when a great hubbub arose in the house, and the servants
rushing in cried out that a fire had broken out below, and that the
house was in danger of burning.

In such emergencies I take it to be the duty of a man of standing to
bear himself with as much dignity as is consistent with vigour; and
neither to allow himself to be carried away by the outcry and disorder
of the crowd, nor to omit any direction that may avail. On this
occasion, however, my first thought was given to the memorial I had
prepared for the King; which I remembered had been taken with other
books and papers to a room over the kitchen. I lost not a moment,
therefore, in sending Maignan for it; nor until I held it safely in my
hand did I feel myself at liberty to think of the house. When I did, I
found that the alarm exceeded the danger; a few buckets of water
extinguished a beam in the chimney which had caught fire, and in a few
moments we were able to resume the meal with the added vivacity which
such an event gave to the conversation. It has never been my custom to
encourage too great freedom at my table; but as the company consisted,
with a single exception, of my household, and as this person--a
Monsieur de Vilain, a young gentleman, the cousin of one of my wife's
maids-of-honour--showed himself possessed of modesty as well as wit, I
thought that the time excused a little relaxation.

This was the cause of the misfortune which followed, and bade fair to
place me in a position of as great difficulty as I have ever known;
for, having in my good humour dismissed the