ith complaint that the
lackeys of Rechteren tripped them up behind, threw them upon their
faces, and threatened them with knives. Rechteren told the French
Plenipotentiary that he would pay them for doing that, and discharge
them if they did not do it. Rechteren's colleagues did what they could
to cover or excuse his folly, and begged that the matter might not
appear in a despatch to France or be represented to the States-general,
but be left to the arbitration of the English Plenipotentiaries. This
the French assented to, but they now demanded satisfaction against
Rechteren, and refused to accept the excuse made for him, that he was
drunk. He might, under other circumstances, says M. Torcy, the French
minister of the time, in his account of the Peace Negociations, have
dismissed the petty quarrel of servants by accepting such an excuse but,
says M. de Torcy, 'it was desirable to retard the Conferences, and this
dispute gave a plausible reason.' Therefore until the King of France and
Bolingbroke had come to a complete understanding, the King of France
ordered his three Plenipotentiaries to keep the States-general busy,
with the task of making it clear to his French Majesty whether
Rechteren's violence was sanctioned by them, or whether he had acted
under private passion, excited by the Ministers of the House of Austria.
Then they must further assent to a prescribed form of disavowal, and
deprive Rechteren of his place as a deputy. This was the high policy of
the affair of the lackeys, which, as Addison says, held all the affairs
of Europe in suspense, a policy avowed with all complacency by the high
politician who was puller of the strings. (Memoires de Torcy, Vol. iii.
pp. 411-13.)

[Footnote 4: It is Monsieur in the first issue and also in the first
reprint.]

[Footnote 5: [begun]]

* * * * *

No. 482. Friday, September 12, 1712. Addison.

'Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant.'

Lucr.

When I have published any single Paper that falls in with the Popular
Taste, and pleases more than ordinary, it always brings me in a great
return of Letters. My _Tuesday's_ Discourse, wherein I gave several
Admonitions to the Fraternity of the _Henpeck'd_, has already produced
me very many Correspondents; the Reason I cannot guess at, unless it be
that such a Discourse is of general Use, and every married Man's Money.
An honest Tra