sal, to be commanded by French officers; and that to obviate all the
reasonable jealousies generally, attending the conduct of foreigners,
they, were at liberty to take all other precautions they should think
proper.

Before his admission the Prdsident de Mesmes had loaded me with
invectives, for secretly corresponding with the enemies of the State, for
favouring his admission, and for opposing that of my sovereign's herald.

I had observed that when the objections against a man are capable of
making greater impression than his answers, it is his best course to say
but little, and that he may talk as much as he pleases when he thinks his
answers of greater force than the objections. I kept strictly to this
rule, for though the said President artfully pointed his satire at me, I
sat unconcerned till I found the Parliament was charmed with what the
envoy had said, and then, in my turn, I was even with the President by
telling him in short that my respect for the Parliament had obliged me to
put up with his sarcasms, which I had hitherto endured; and that I did
not suppose he meant that his sentiments should always be a law to the
Parliament; that nobody there had a greater esteem for him, with which I
hoped that the innocent freedom I had taken to speak my mind was not
inconsistent; that as to the non-admission of the herald, had it not been
for the motion made by M. Broussel, I should have fallen into the snare
through overcredulity, and have given my vote for that which might
perhaps have ended in the destruction of the city, and involved myself in
what has since fully proved to be a crime by the Queen's late solemn
approbation of the contrary conduct; and that, as to the envoy, I was
silent till I saw most of them were for giving him audience, when I
thought it better to vote the same way than vainly to contest it.

This modest and submissive answer of mine to all the scurrilities heaped
upon me for a fortnight together by the First President and the President
de Mesmes had an excellent effect upon the members, and obliterated for a
long time the suspicion that I aimed to govern them by my cabals. The
President de Mesmes would have replied, but his words were drowned in the
general clamour. The clock struck five; none had dined, and many had not
broken their fast, which the Presidents had, and therefore had the
advantage in disputation.

The decree ordering the admission of the Spanish envoy to audience
directed