shing to see and admire at his ease all the marvels
of so many different kinds collected there, he should have leisure and
means to return perfectly instructed upon everything he wished to know.
Kourakin, in fact, remained in Rome three years, associating with the
savans on the one hand and the best company on the other, whence by
degrees he obtained all he wished to know; all the more readily because
this Court boasts of its temporal pretensions and of its conquests of
this kind, instead of keeping them secret. In consequence of the long
and faithful report that Kourakin made to the Czar, that prince heaved a
sigh, saying that he must be master in his own country, and could not
place there anybody greater than himself; and never afterwards did he
think of turning Catholic.

This fact respecting the Czars and Rome, Prince Kourakin did not hide.
Everybody who knew him has heard him relate it. I have eaten with him
and he with me, and I have talked a good deal with him, and heard him
talk, with pleasure, upon many things.

The Regent, informed by him of the forthcoming arrival in France of the
Czar by sea, sent the King's equipages; horses, coaches, vehicles,
waggons, and tables and chambers with Du Libois, one of the King's
gentlemen in ordinary, to go and wait for the Czar at Dunkerque, pay the
expenses incurred by him and his suite on the way to Paris, and
everywhere render him the same honour as to the King. The Czar proposed
to allot a hundred days to his journey. The apartment of the Queen-
mother at the Louvre was furnished for him, the councils usually held
there taking place in the houses of the chiefs of these councils.

M. le Duc d'Orleans discussing with me as to the nobleman best fitted to
be appointed to wait upon the Czar during his stay, I recommended the
Marechal de Tesse, as a man without occupation, who well knew the
language and usages of society, who was accustomed to foreigners by his
journeys and negotiations in Spain, Turin, Rome, and in other courts of
Italy, and who, gentle and polite, was sure to perform his duties well.
M. le Duc d'Orleans agreed with me, and the next day sent for him and
gave him his orders.

When it was known that the Czar was near Dunkerque, the Regent sent the
Marquis de Neelle to receive him at Calais, and accompany him until they
met the Marechal de Tesse, who was not to go beyond Beaumont to wait for
him. At the same time the Hotel de Lesdiguieres was prepared fo