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.”

The adventures of Prince Emmanuel of Portugal are a perfect romance.  His brother, the King, was desirous, it is said, at first, to have made a priest and a Bishop of him; to this, however, he had an insuperable objection, for he was in love.  The King sent for him, and asked him if it was true that he had really resolved not to enter the Church.  On the Prince’s replying in the affirmative, the King, his brother, struck him.  The Prince said, “You are my King and my brother, and therefore I cannot revenge myself as I ought upon you; but you have put an insult upon me which I cannot endure, and you shall never again see me in the whole course of your life.”  He is said to have set out on that very night.  His brother wrote to him, commanding his return from Paris to Holland; as he made no reply to this command, his Governor and the Ambassador had no doubt that it was his intention to obey it.  In the course of last week he expressed a desire to see Versailles and Marly.  The Ambassador made preparations for this excursion, and together with his wife accompanied the Prince, whose Governor and one of his gentlemen were of the party.  Upon their return from Versailles, when they reached the courtyard, the Prince called out to stop, and asked if there were any chaises ready: