The Czar Peter I. is not mad; he has sense enough, and if he had not unfortunately been so brutally educated he would have made a good prince.  The way in which he behaved to his Czarowitz (Alexis) is horrible.  He gave his word that he would do him no injury, and afterwards poisoned him by means of the Sacrament.  This is so impious and abominable that I can never forgive him for it (1719).

The last Duc d’Ossuna had, it is said, a very beautiful, but at the same time a passionate and jealous wife.  Having learnt that her husband had chosen a very fine stuff for the dress of his mistress, an actress, she went to the merchant and procured it of him.  He, thinking it was intended for her, made no scruple of delivering it to her.  After it was made up she put it on, and, showing it to her husband, said, “Do not you think it is very beautiful?” The husband, angry at the trick, replied, “Yes, the stuff is very beautiful, but it is put to an unworthy use.”  “That is what everybody says of me,” retorted the Duchess.

At Fontainebleau in the Queen’s cabinet may be seen the portrait of La Belle Terronniere, who was so much beloved by Francois I., and who was the unwitting cause of his death.

I have often walked at night in the gallery at Fontainebleau where the King’s ghost is said to appear, but the good Francois I. never did me the honour to show himself.  Perhaps it was because he thought my prayers were not efficacious enough to draw him from purgatory, and in this I think he was quite right.

King James ii. died with great firmness and resolution, and without any bigotry; that is to say, very differently from the manner in which he had lived.  I saw and spoke to him four-and-twenty hours before his death.  “I hope,” I said, “soon to hear of your Majesty’s getting better.”  He smiled and said, “If I should die, shall I not have lived long enough?”

I hardly know how to rejoice at the accession of our Prince George to the Throne of England, for I have no confidence in the English people.  I remember still too well the fine speeches which were made here not long ago by Lord Peterborough.  I would rather that our Elector was Emperor of Germany, and I wish that the King who is here (James ii.) was again in possession of England, because the kingdom belongs to him.  I fear that the inconstancy of the English will in the end produce some scheme which may be injurious to us.  Perhaps there was never in any nation a King who had been crowned with more eclat, or tumultuous joy than James ii.; and yet the same nation since persecuted him in the most pitiless manner, and has so tormented his innocent son that he can scarcely find an asylum after all his heavy misfortunes.

     [The Duchesse D’Orleans was, by the mother’s side, granddaughter of
     James I, which explains the interest she took in the fate of the
     Stuart family.]

If the English were to be trusted I should say that it is fortunate the Parliaments are in favour of George; but the more one reads the history of English Revolutions, the more one is compelled to remark the eternal hatred which the people of that nation have had towards their Kings, as well as their fickleness (1714).