, beside three hundred pounds worth
of ambergris used in the cooking," nothing about that six thousand
ounces of gold. "The Ambassador had a long private interview with the
king; it is thought he proposed Mad. Henriette for the Prince. He left
with a present of a rich jewel. He requested liberation of all the
imprisoned priests in the three kingdoms, but the answer is not yet
given."

By the eleventh of January the embassy had gone, and Thomas Locke says
Cadenet "received a round answer about the Protestants." Let us hope it
was so, for it was nearly the last, as it was. Thomas Murray writes that
he "proposed a match with France,--a confederation against Spanish
power, and asked his Majesty to abandon the rebellious princes,--but he
refused unless they might have toleration." The Ambassador was followed
to Rochester for the debts of some of his train,--but got well home to
Paris and New Style.

And so he vanishes from English history.

His king made him Duke of Chaulnes and Peer of France, but his brother,
the favorite died soon after, either of a purple fever or of a broken
heart, and neither of them need trouble us more.

At the moment the whole embassy seemed a failure in England,--and so it
is spoken of by all the English writers of the time whom I have seen.
"There is a flaunting French Ambassador come over lately," says Howel,
"and I believe his errand is naught else but compliment.... He had an
audience two days since, where he, with his train of ruffling
long-haired Monsieurs, carried himself in such a light garb, that after
the audience the king asked my Lord Keeper Bacon what he thought of the
French Ambassador. He answered, that he was a tall, proper man. 'Aye,'
his Majesty replied, 'but what think you of his head-piece? Is he a
proper man for the office of an ambassador?' 'Sir,' said Bacon, 'tall
men are like houses of four or five stories, wherein commonly the
uppermost room is worst furnished.'"

Hard, this, on us poor six-footers. One need not turn to the biography
after this, to guess that the philosopher was five feet four.

I think there was a breeze, and a cold one, all the time, between the
embassy and the English courtiers. I could tell you a good many stories
to show this, but I would give them all for one anecdote of what Edward
Winslow said to Madam Carver on Christmas evening. They thought it all
naught because they did not know what would come of it. We do know.

And I wish you to obser