, I
should promise him for his part 100,000 crowns if the conference that was
proposed ended in a peace, and bid him tell the Archduke that, if the
Spaniards proposed reasonable terms, he would sign and have them
registered in Parliament before Mazarin should know anything of the
matter.

Don Gabriel received the overture with joy; he had some particular
fancies, but Fuensaldagne, who had a particular kindness for him, said
that he was the wisest fool he ever saw in his life. I have remarked
more than once that this sort of man cannot persuade, but can insinuate
perfectly well, and that the talent of insinuation is of more service
than that of persuasion, because one may insinuate to a hundred where one
can hardly persuade five.

The King of England, after having lost the battle of Worcester, arrived
in Paris the day that Don Gabriel set out, the 13th of September, 1651.
My Lord Taff was his great chamberlain, valet de chambre, clerk of the
kitchen, cup-bearer, and all,--an equipage answerable to his Court, for
his Majesty had not changed his shirt all the way from England. Upon his
arrival at Paris, indeed, he had one lent him by my Lord Jermyn; but the
Queen, his mother, had not money to buy him another for the next day. The
Duc d'Orleans went to compliment his Majesty upon his arrival, but it was
not in my power to persuade his Royal Highness to give his nephew one
penny, because, said he, "a little would not be worth his acceptance, and
a great deal would engage me to do as much hereafter." This leads me to
make the following digression: that there is nothing so wretched as to be
a minister to a Prince, and, at the same time, not his favourite; for it
is his favour only that gives one a power over the more minute concerns
of the family, for which the public does, nevertheless, think a minister
accountable when they, see he has power over affairs of far greater
consequence.

Therefore I was not in a condition to oblige his Royal Highness by
assisting the King of England with a thousand pistoles, for which I was
horridly, ashamed, both upon his account anal my own; but I borrowed
fifteen hundred for him from M. Morangis, and carried them to my Lord
Taff.--[Lord Clarendon extols the civilities of Cardinal de Retz to King
Charles II., and has reported a curious conversation which the Cardinal
had with that Prince.]--It is remarkable that the same night, as I was
going home, I met one Tilney, an Englishman whom I h