erson was too great, and his attachment
to the interest of his royal master too well known, not to render him
very disagreeable to that crafty and tyrannical prince, whom God had so
long suffered to be the disgrace of monarchy, and the scourge of Europe.
He at first appeared very languid, as indeed he was; but on casting his
eye upon the Earl of Stair, he affected to appear before him in a much
better state of health than he really was; and therefore, as if he had
been awakened on a sudden from some deep reverie, he immediately put
himself into an erect posture, called up a laboured vivacity into his
countenance, and ate much more heartily than was by any means advisable,
repeating two or three times to a nobleman, (I think the Duke of Bourbon)
then in waiting, "_Il me semble que je ne mange pas mal pour un homme qui
devoit mourir si tot._" "Methinks I eat very well for a man who is to die
so soon." But this inroad upon that regularity of living which he had for
some time observed, agreed so ill with him that he never recovered this
meal, but died in less than a fortnight. This gave occasion for some
humorous people to say, that old Louis, after all, was killed by a
Briton. But if this story be true, (which I think there can be no room to
doubt, as the colonel, from whom I have often heard it, though absent,
could scarce be misinformed,) it might more properly be said that he fell
by his own vanity; in which view I thought it so remarkable, as not to be
unworthy of a place in these memoirs.

The captain quickly returned, and continued, with small interruptions, at
Paris, at least till 1720, and how much longer I do not certainly know.
The Earl's favour and generosity made him easy in his affairs, though he
was, (as has been observed before,) part of the time, out of commission,
by breaking the regiment to which he belonged, of which before he was
major. This was in all probability the gayest part of his life, and the
most criminal. Whatever wise and good examples he might find in the
family where he had the honour to reside, it is certain that the French
court, during the regency of the Duke of Orleans, was one of the most
dissolute under heaven. What, by a wretched abuse of language, have been
called intrigues of love and gallantry, were so entirely to the major's
then degenerate taste, that if not the whole business, at least the whole
happiness of his life, consisted in them; and he had now too much leisure
for one wh