quarter
of an hour. But this had like to have been of worse consequence to me
than the other, for by this time there was great inquiring after the
person who killed a man at the tennis-court. My landlord was then
sensible of his mistake, and came to me and told me the danger I was
in, and very honestly offered to convey me to a friend's of his, where
I should be very secure; I thanked him, and suffered myself to be
carried at midnight whither he pleased. He visited me very often, till
I was well enough to walk about, which was not in less than ten days,
and then we thought fit to be gone, so we took post for Orleans. But
when I came upon the road I found myself in a new error, for my wound
opened again with riding, and I was in a worse condition than before,
being forced to take up at a little village on the road, called ----,
about ---- miles from Orleans, where there was no surgeon to be had,
but a sorry country barber, who nevertheless dressed me as well as he
could, and in about a week more I was able to walk to Orleans at three
times. Here I stayed till I was quite well, and took coach for Lyons
and so through Savoy into Italy.
I spent nearly two years' time after this bad beginning in travelling
through Italy, and to the several courts of Rome, Naples, Venice, and
Vienna.
When I came to Lyons the king was gone from thence to Grenoble to meet
the cardinal, but the queens were both at Lyons.
The French affairs seemed at this time to have but an indifferent
aspect. There was no life in anything but where the cardinal was: he
pushed on everything with extraordinary conduct, and generally with
success; he had taken Susa and Pignerol from the Duke of Savoy, and
was preparing to push the duke even out of all his dominions.
But in the meantime everywhere else things looked ill; the troops
were ill-paid, the magazines empty, the people mutinous, and a general
disorder seized the minds of the court; and the cardinal, who was the
soul of everything, desired this interview at Grenoble, in order to
put things into some better method.
This politic minister always ordered matters so, that if there was
success in anything the glory was his, but if things miscarried it was
all laid upon the king. This conduct was so much the more nice, as it
is the direct contrary to the custom in like cases, where kings assume
the glory of all the success in an action, and when a thing miscarries
make themselves easy by sacrificing the
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