He had some time
before wished to take a trip to Paris, but Louis XIV. was old,
melancholy, and vanquished, and had declined the czar's visit. The
Regent could not do the same thing, when, being at the Hague in 1717,
Peter I. repeated the expression of his desire. Marshal Cosse was sent
to meet him, and the honors due to the king himself were everywhere paid
to him on the road. A singular mixture of military and barbaric
roughness with the natural grandeur of a conqueror and creator of an
empire, the czar mightily excited the curiosity of the Parisians.
"Sometimes, feeling bored by the confluence of spectators," says Duclos,
"but never disconcerted, he would dismiss them with a word, a gesture, or
would go away without ceremony, to stroll whither his fancy impelled him.
He was a mighty tall man, very well made, rather lean, face rather round
in shape, a high forehead, fine eyebrows, complexion reddish and brown,
fine black eyes, large, lively, piercing; well-opened; a glance majestic
and gracious when he cared for it, otherwise stern and fierce, with a tic
that did not recur often, but that affected his eyes and his whole
countenance, and struck terror. It lasted an instant, with a glance wild
and terrible, and immediately passed away. His whole air indicated his
intellect, his reflection, his grandeur, and did not lack a certain
grace. In all his visits he combined a majesty the loftiest, the
proudest, the most delicate, the most sustained, at the same time the
least embarrassing when he had once established it, with a politeness
which savored of it, always and in all cases; masterlike everywhere, but
with degrees according to persons. He had a sort of familiarity which
came of frankness, but he was not exempt from a strong impress of that
barbarism of his country which rendered all his ways prompt and sudden,
and his wishes uncertain, without bearing to be contradicted in any."
Eating and drinking freely, getting drunk sometimes, rushing about the
streets in hired coach, or cab, or the carriage of people who came to see
him, of which he took possession unceremoniously, he testified towards
the Regent a familiar good grace mingled with a certain superiority;
at the play, to which they went together, the czar asked for beer; the
Regent rose, took the goblet which was brought and handed it to Peter,
who drank, and, without moving, put the glass back on the tray which the
Regent held all the while, with a slight incl