A Frenchman who had taken refuge in Holland informed me by letter of what was passing with respect to the Prince of Orange.  Thinking that I should do the King a service by communicating to him these news, I hastened to him, and he thanked me for them.  In the evening, however, he said to me, smiling, “My Ministers will have it that you have been misinformed, and that your correspondent has not written you one word of truth.”  I replied, “Time will show which is better informed, your Majesty’s Ministers or my correspondent.  For my own part, Sire, my intention at least was good.”

Some time afterwards, when the report of the approaching accession of William to the throne of England became public, M. de Torcy came to me to beg I would acquaint him with my news.  I replied, “I receive none now; you told the King that what I formerly had was false, and upon this I desired my correspondents to send me no more, for I do not love to spread false reports.”  He laughed, as he always did, and said, “Your news have turned out to be quite correct.”  I replied, “A great and able Minister ought surely to have news more correct than I can obtain; and I have been angry with myself for having formerly acquainted the King with the reports which had reached me.  I ought to have recollected that his clever Ministers are acquainted with everything.”  The King therefore said to me, “You are making game of my Ministers.”—­“Sire,” I replied, “I am only giving them back their own.”

M. de Louvois was the only person who was well served by his spies; indeed, he never spared his money.  All the Frenchmen who went into Germany or Holland as dancing or fencing-masters, esquires, etc., were paid by him to give him information of whatever passed in the several Courts.  After his death this system was discontinued, and thus it is that the present Ministers are so ignorant of the affairs of other nations.

Lauzun says the drollest things, and takes the most amusing, roundabout way of intimating whatever he does not care to say openly.  For example, when he wished the King to understand that the Count de Marsan, brother of M. Legrand, had attached himself to M. Chamillard, the then Minister, he took the following means:  “Sire,” said he, with an air of the utmost simplicity, as if he had not the least notion of malice, “I wished to change my wigmaker, and employ the one who is now the most in fashion; but I could not find him, for M. de Marsan has kept him shut up in his room for several days past, making wigs for his household, and for M. de Chamillard’s friends.”