with a something of grandeur, equality of rank, and, slightly, superiority of age; for all that was distinctly perceptible.”  We know how he went to see Madame de Maintenon.  One of his first visits was to the church of the Sorbonne; when he caught sight of Richelieu’s monument, he ran up to it, embraced the statue, and, “Ah! great man,” said he, “if thou wert still alive, I would give thee one half of my kingdom to teach me to govern the other.”

[Illustration:  Peter the Great and Little Louis XV——­82]

The czar was for seeing everything, studying everything; everything interested him, save the court and its frivolities; he did not go to visit the princesses of the blood, and confined himself to saluting them coldly, whilst passing along a terrace; but he was present at a sitting of the Parliament and of the academies, he examined the organization of all the public establishments, he visited the shops of the celebrated workmen, he handled the coining-die whilst there was being struck in his honor a medal bearing a Fame with these words:  Vires acquiret eundo (’Twill gather strength as it goes.) He received a visit from the doctors of the Sorbonne, who brought him a memorial touching the reunion of the Greek and Latin Churches.  “I am a mere soldier,” said he, “but I will gladly have an examination made of the memorial you present to me.”  Amidst all his chatting, studying, and information-hunting, Peter the Great did not forget the political object of his trip.  He wanted to detach France from Sweden, her heretofore faithful ally, still receiving a subsidy which the czar would fain have appropriated to himself.  Together with his own alliance, he promised that of Poland and of Prussia.  “France has nothing to fear from the emperor,” he said; as for King George, whom he detested, “if any rupture should take place between him and the Regent, Russia would suffice to fill towards France the place of England as well as of Sweden.”

Thanks to the ability of Dubois, the Regent felt himself infeoffed to England; he gave a cool reception to the overtures of the czar, who proposed a treaty of alliance and commerce.  Prussia had already concluded secretly with France; Poland was distracted by intestine struggles; matters were confined to the establishment of amicable relations; France thenceforth maintained an ambassador in Russia, and the czar accepted the Regent’s mediation between Sweden and himself.  “France will be ruined by luxury and daintiness,” said Peter the Great, at his departure, more impressed with the danger run by the nation from a court which was elegant even to effeminacy than by the irregularity of the morals, to which elsewhere he was personally accustomed.