de Lesdiguieres was large and handsome, as I have said at the commencement of this chapter, adjoined the arsenal, and belonged by succession to the Marechal de Villeroy, who lodged at the Tuileries.  Thus the house was empty, because the Duc de Villeroy, who was not a man fond of display, had found it too distant to live in.  It was entirely refurnished, and very magnificently, with the furniture of the King.

The Czar arrived at Beaumont on Friday, the 7th of May, 1717, about mid-day.  Tesse made his reverences to him as he descended from his coach, had the honour of dining with him, and of escorting him that very day to Paris.

The Czar entered the city in one of Tesse’s coaches, with three of his suite with him, but not Tesse himself.  The Marechal followed in another coach.  The Czar alighted at nine o’clock in the evening at the Louvre, and walked all through the apartments of the Queen-mother.  He considered them to be too magnificently hung and lighted, jumped into his coach again, and went to the Hotel de Lesdiguieres, where he wished to lodge.  He thought the apartment destined for him too fine also, and had his camp-bed immediately spread out in a wardrobe.  The Marechal de Tesse, who was to do the honours of his house and of his table, to accompany him everywhere, and not quit the place where he might be, lodged in an apartment of the Hotel de Lesdiguieres, and had enough to do in following and sometimes running after him.  Verton, one of the King’s maitres d’hotel, was charged with serving him and all the tables of the Czar and his suite.  The suite consisted of forty persons of all sorts, twelve or fifteen of whom were considerable people in themselves, or by their appointments; they all ate with the Czar.

Verton was a clever lad, strong in certain company, fond of good cheer and of gaming, and served the Czar with so much order, and conducted himself so well, that this monarch and all the suite conceived a singular friendship for him.

The Czar excited admiration by his extreme curiosity, always bearing upon his views of government, trade, instruction, police, and this curiosity embraced everything, disdained nothing in the smallest degree useful; it was marked and enlightened, esteeming only what merited to be esteemed, and exhibited in a clear light the intelligence, justness, ready appreciation of his mind.  Everything showed in the Czar the vast extent of his knowledge, and a sort of logical harmony of ideas.  He allied in the most surprising manner the highest, the proudest, the most delicate, the most sustained, and at the same time the least embarrassing majesty, when he had established it in all its safety with a marked politeness.  Yet he was always and with everybody the master everywhere, but with gradations, according to the persons he was with.  He had a kind of familiarity which sprang from liberty, but he was not without a strong dash of that ancient barbarism of his country, which rendered all his actions