The last observation that I shall now mention of the Cardinal’s is, “That a secret is more easily kept by a good many people, than one commonly imagines.”  By this he means a secret of importance, among people interested in the keeping of it.  And it is certain that people of business know the importance of secrecy, and will observe it, where they are concerned in the event.  To go and tell any friend, wife, or mistress, any secret with which they have nothing to do, is discovering to them such an unretentive weakness, as must convince them that you will tell it to twenty others, and consequently that they may reveal it without the risk of being discovered.  But a secret properly communicated only to those who are to be concerned in the thing in question, will probably be kept by them though they should be a good many.  Little secrets are commonly told again, but great ones are generally kept.  Adieu!

LETTER LI

London, September 20, O. S. 1748.

Dear boy:  I wait with impatience for your accurate history of the ‘Chevaliers Forte Epees’, which you promised me in your last, and which I take to be the forerunner of a larger work that you intend to give the public, containing a general account of all the religious and military orders of Europe.  Seriously, you will do well to have a general notion of all those orders, ancient and modern; both as they are frequently the subjects of conversation, and as they are more or less interwoven with the histories of those times.  Witness the Teutonic Order, which, as soon as it gained strength, began its unjust depredations in Germany, and acquired such considerable possessions there; and the Order of Malta also, which continues to this day its piracies upon the Infidels.  Besides one can go into no company in Germany, without running against Monsieur le Chevalier, or Monsieur le Commandeur de l’ Ordre Teutonique.  It is the same in all the other parts of Europe with regard to the Order of Malta, where you never go into company without meeting two or three Chevaliers or Commandeurs, who talk of their ‘Preuves’, their ‘Langues’, their ‘Caravanes’, etc., of all which things I am sure you would not willingly be ignorant.  On the other hand, I do not mean that you should have a profound and minute knowledge of these matters, which are of a nature that a general knowledge of them is fully sufficient.  I would not recommend you to read Abbe Vertot’s “History of the Order of Malta,” in four quarto volumes; that would be employing a great deal of good time very ill.  But I would have you know the foundations, the objects, the insignia, and the short general history of them all.