be wanting; the country is
poor and avaricious, and there is no state secret which may not be
purchased with three thousand louis." M. de Segur, imbued with these
ideas, made it his first object to buy over the two favourites. The one
was daughter of Elie Enka, who was a musician in the chapel of the late
king. Handsome and witty, she had at twelve years of age attracted the
notice of the king, then prince royal, and he had, at that early age, as
in anticipation of his amour, bestowed on her all the care and all the
cost of a royal education. She had travelled in France and in England,
and knew all the European languages; she had polished her natural genius
by contact with the lettered men and artists of Germany. A feigned
marriage with Rietz, valet de chambre of the king, was the pretext for
her residence at court, and gave her the opportunity for surrounding
herself with the leading men in politics and literature in the city of
Berlin. Spoiled by the precocity of her fortune, yet careless as to its
retention, she had allowed two rivals to dispute the king's heart. One,
the young Countess d'Ingenheim, had just died in the flower of her
youth; the other, the Countess d'Ashkof, had borne the king two
children, and flattered herself, in vain, with having extricated him
from the empire of Madame Rietz.

The Baron de Roll, in the name of the Count d'Artois, and the Viscount
de Caraman, in the name of Louis XVI., had possessed themselves of all
the avenues to this cabinet. The Count de Goltz, ambassador from Prussia
to Paris, had informed his court of the object of M. de Segur's mission.
The report ran amongst well-informed persons that this envoy carried
with him several millions (francs), destined to pay the weakness or the
treason of the Berlin cabinet.

A copy of the secret instructions of M. de Segur reached Berlin two
hours before him, which revealed to the king the whole plan of seduction
and venality that the agent of France was to practice on his favourites
and mistresses, whose character, ambition, rivalries, weaknesses, true
or feigned, the means of acting by them on the mind of the king, were
all and severally noted down with the security of confidence. There was
a tariff for all consciences,--a price for every treachery. The
favourite aide-de-camp of the king, Rischofwerder, then very powerful,
was to be assailed by irresistible offers, and in case his connivance
should be revealed, a splendid establishment in