passage through his kingdom; and as the army had been reduced, he could not hinder the disbanded soldiers from taking service wherever they chose.  My son had no intention whatever to break with England, although he has been told that there was a majority of two voices only in that nation against declaring it at war with France.  He thinks Lord Stair is not his friend, and that he has not faithfully reported to his monarch the state of things here, but would rather be pleased to kindle the flames of a war.  If that Minister had honestly explained to the King my son’s intentions, the King would not have refused to agree with them.

It is said here that the present Queen of Spain (1716), although she is more beloved by her husband than was the last, has less influence over him.  The Abbe Alberoni has them both in his power, and governs them like two children.

The English gentlemen and ladies who are here tell horrible stories of Queen Anne.  They say she gets quite drunk, and that besides but that she is inconstant in her affections, and changes often.  Lady Sandwich has not told this to me, but she has to my son.  I have seen her but seldom, on account of the repugnance I felt at learning she had confessed she had been present at such orgies.

I do not know whether it is true that Louvois was poisoned by that old Maintenon, but it is quite certain that he was poisoned, as well as his physician who committed the crime, and who said when he was dying, “I die by poison, but I deserve it, for having poisoned my master, M. de Louvois; and I did this in the hope of becoming the King’s physician, as Madame de Maintenon had promised me.”  I ought to add that some persons pretend to think this story of Doctor Seron is a mere invention.  Old Piety (Maintenon) did not commit this crime without an object; but if she really did poison Louvois, it was because he had opposed her designs and endeavoured to undeceive the King.  Louvois, the better to gain his object, had advised the King not to take her with him to the army.  The King was weak enough to repeat this to her, and this it was that excited her against Louvois.  That the latter was a very bad man, who feared neither heaven nor hell, no man can deny; but it must be confessed that he served his King faithfully.

The Duke de Noailles’ grandfather was one of the ugliest men in the world.  He had one glass eye, and his nose was like an owl’s, his mouth large, his teeth ugly and decayed, his face and head very small, his body long and bent, and he was bitter and ill-tempered.  His name was Gluinel.  Madame de Cornuel one day was reading his grandson’s genealogy, and, when she came to his name, exclaimed, “I always suspected, when I saw the Duc de Noailles, that he came out of the Book of the Lamentations of Jeremiah!”

When James II. took refuge in France from England, Madame de Cornuel went to Saint-Germain to see him.  Some time afterwards, she was told of the pains our King was taking to procure his restoration to the throne.  Madame de Cornuel shook her head, and said, “I have seen this King James; our monarch’s efforts are all in vain; he is good for nothing but to make poor man’s sauce. (La sauce au pauvre homme.)”