Various things relating to this monarch have been seen in their place; his various journeys to Holland, Germany, Vienna, England, and to several parts of the North; the object of those journeys, with some account of his military actions, his policy, his family.  It has been shown that he wished to come into France during the time of the late King, who civilly refused to receive him.  There being no longer this obstacle, he wished to satisfy his curiosity, and he informed the Regent through Prince Kourakin, his ambassador at Paris, that he was going to quit the Low Countries, and come and see the King.

There was nothing for it but to appear very pleased, although the Regent would gladly have dispensed with this visit.  The expenses to be defrayed were great; the trouble would be not less great with a prince so powerful and so clear-sighted, but full of whims, with a remnant of barbarous manners, and a grand suite of people, of behaviour very different from that common in these countries, full of caprices and of strange fashions, and both they and their master very touchy and very positive upon what they claimed to be due or permitted to them.

Moreover the Czar was at daggers drawn with the King of England, the enmity between them passing all decent limits, and being the more bitter because personal.  This troubled not a little the Regent, whose intimacy with the King of England was public, the private interest of Dubois carrying it even to dependence.  The dominant passion of the Czar was to render his territories flourishing by commerce; he had made a number of canals in order to facilitate it; there was one for which he needed the concurrence of the King of England, because it traversed a little corner of his German dominions.  From jealousy George would not consent to it.  Peter, engaged in the war with Poland, then in that of the North, in which George was also engaged, negotiated in vain.  He was all the more irritated, because he was in no condition to employ force; and this canal, much advanced, could not be continued.  Such was the source of that hatred which lasted all the lives of these monarchs, and with the utmost bitterness.

Kourakin was of a branch of that ancient family of the Jagellons, which had long worn the crowns of Poland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.  He was a tall, well-made man, who felt all the grandeur of his origin; had much intelligence, knowledge of the way of managing men, and instruction.  He spoke French and several languages very fairly; he had travelled much, served in war, then been employed in different courts.  He was Russian to the backbone, and his extreme avarice much damaged his talents.  The Czar and he had married two sisters, and each had a son.  The Czarina had been repudiated and put into a convent near Moscow; Kourakin in no way suffered from this disgrace; he perfectly knew his master, with whom he kept on very free terms, and by whom he was treated with confidence and consideration.  His last mission had been to Rome, where he remained three years; thence he came as ambassador to Paris.  At Rome he was without official character, and without business except a secret one, with which the Czar had entrusted him, as to a sure and enlightened man.