t my success, and
refused to be reimbursed the expense he had been at, though now my
circumstances were prosperous.

The degree of credit I enjoyed was soon noticed: foreign ministers began
to pay their court to me: Goltz, the Prussian minister, made every effort
to win me, but found me incorruptible.

The Russian alliance was at this time highly courted by foreign powers;
the humbling of Prussia was the thing generally wished and planned: and
nobody was better informed than myself of ministerial and family factions
at this court.

My mistress, a year after my acquaintance with her, fell into her
enemies' power, and with her husband, was delivered over to the
executioner. Chancellor Bestuchef, in the year 1756, was forced to
confession by the knout. Apraxin, minister of war, had a similar fate.
The wife of his brother, then envoy in Poland, was, by the treachery of a
certain Lieutenant Berger, with three others of the first ladies of the
court, knouted, branded, and had their tongues cut out. This happened in
the year 1741, when Elizabeth ascended the throne. Her husband, however,
faithfully served: I knew him as Russian envoy, at Vienna, 1751. This
may indeed be called the love of our country, and thus does it happen to
the first men of the state: what then can a foreigner hope for, if
persecuted, and in the power of those in authority?

No man, in so short a space of time, had greater opportunities than I, to
discover the secrets of state; especially when guided by Hyndford and
Bernes, under the reign of a well-meaning but short-sighted Empress,
whose first minister was a weak man, directed by the will of an able and
ambitious wife, and which wife loved me, a stranger, an acquaintance of
only a few months, so passionately that to this passion she would have
sacrificed every other object. She might, in fact, be considered as
Empress of Russia, disposing of peace or war, and had I been more prudent
or less sincere, I might in such a situation, have amassed treasures, and
deposited them in full security. Her generosity was boundless; and,
though obliged to pay above a hundred thousand roubles, in one year, to
discharge her son's debts, yet might I have saved a still larger sum; but
half of the gifts she obliged me to receive, I lent to this son, and
lost. So far was I from selfish, and so negligent of wealth, that by
supplying the wants of others, I often, on a reverse of fortune, suffered
want myself.

Thi