e clear, rapid manner peculiar to him, to
comment on the state of Europe. "For France," said he, in concluding his
sketch, "peace is absolutely necessary. A drained treasury, an exhausted
country, require it. You see, from what I have said, that Spain
and England are the principal quarters from which we are to dread
hostilities. Spain we must guard against; England we must propitiate:
the latter object is easy in England in any case, whether James or
George be uppermost. For whoever is king in England will have quite
enough to do at home to make him agree willingly enough to peace abroad.
The former requires a less simple and a more enlarged policy. I fear the
ambition of the Queen of Spain and the turbulent genius of her minion
Alberoni. We must fortify ourselves by new forms of alliance, at various
courts, which shall at once defend us and intimidate our enemies. We
wish to employ some nobleman of ability and address, on a secret mission
to Russia: will you be that person? Your absence from Paris will be but
short; you will see a very droll country, and a very droll sovereign;
you will return hither, doubly the rage, and with a just claim to more
important employment hereafter. What say you to the proposal?"

"I must hear more," said I, "before I decide."

The Abbe renewed. It is needless to repeat all the particulars of
the commission that he enumerated. Suffice it that, after a brief
consideration, I accepted the honour proposed to me. The Abbe wished
me joy, relapsed into his ordinary strain of coarse levity for a few
minutes, and then, reminding me that I was to attend the Regent on the
morrow, departed. It was easy to see that in the mind of that subtle and
crafty ecclesiastic, with whose manoeuvres private intrigues were always
blended with public, this offer of employment veiled a desire to banish
me from the immediate vicinity of the good-natured Regent, whose favour
the aspiring Abbe wished at that exact moment exclusively to monopolize.
Mere men of pleasure he knew would not interfere with his aims upon the
Prince; mere men of business still less: but a man who was thought to
combine the capacities of both, and who was moreover distinguished by
the Regent, he deemed a more dangerous rival than the inestimable person
thus suspected really was.

However, I cared little for the honest man's motives. Adventure to
me had always greater charms than dissipation, and it was far more
agreeable to the nature of my a