There is another odd thing that I must relate before quitting this affair.  Tesse, as I have said, was charged with the defence of Toulon by land.  It was a charge of no slight importance.  He was in a country where nothing was prepared, and where everything was wanting; the fleet of the enemy and their army were near at hand, commanded by two of the most skilful captains of the day:  if they succeeded, the kingdom itself was in danger, and the road open to the enemy even to Paris.  A general thus situated would have been in no humour for jesting, it might have been thought.  But this was not the case with Tesse.  He found time to write to Pontchartrain all the details of the war and all that passed amongst our troops in the style of Don Quixote, of whom he called himself the wretched squire and the Sancho; and everything he wrote he adapted to the adventures of that romance.  Pontchartrain showed me these letters; they made him die with laughing, he admired them so; and in truth they were very comical, and he imitated that romance with more wit than I believed him to possess.  It appeared to me incredible, however, that a man should write thus, at such a critical time, to curry, favour with a secretary of state.  I could not have believed it had I not seen it.

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: 

Imagining themselves everywhere in marvellous danger of capture
Oh, my lord! how many virtues you make me detest
Polite when necessary, but insolent when he dared
Promotion was granted according to length of service