a manner upon him, and he could not keep me any longer at a distance without departing from his first principle--that of keeping measures with everybody.  He then threw me, or let me slide if you will, into the hands of these women; and when he found that I pressed him hard that way, too, he took me out of their hands and put me back again into the proper channel of business, where I had not been long, as you will see by-and-by, before the scene of amusement was finished.

Sir John Areskine told me when he came from the first audience that he had of his Royal Highness, that he put him in mind of the encouragement which he had given the Earl of Mar to take arms.  I never heard anything of this kind but what Sir John let drop to me.  If the fact be true, you see that the Scotch general had been amused by him with a witness.  The English general was so in his turn; and while this was doing, the Regent might think it best to have him to himself.  Four eyes comprehend more objects than two, and I was a little better acquainted with the characters of people, and the mass of the country, than the duke, though this Court had been at first a strange country to me in comparison of the former.

An infinity of little circumstances concurred to make me form this opinion, some of which are better felt than explained, and many of which are not present to my memory.  That which had the greatest weight with me, and which is, I think, decisive, I will mention.  At the very time when it is pretended that the Regent treated with the Duke of Ormond on the express condition that I should know nothing of the matter, two persons of the first rank and greatest credit in this Court, when I made the most pressing instances to them in favour of the Chevalier, threw out in conversation to me that I should attach myself to the Duke of Orleans, that in my circumstances I might want him, and that he might have occasion for me.  Something was intimated of pensions and establishment, and of making my peace at home.  I would not understand this language, because I would not break with the people who held it:  and when they saw that I would not take the hints, they ceased to give them.

I fancy that you see by this time the motives of the Regent’s conduct.  I am not, I confess, able to explain to you those of the Duke of Ormond’s; I cannot so much as guess at them.  When he came into France, I was careful to show him all the friendship and all the respect possible.  My friends were his, my purse was his, and even my bed was his.  I went further; I did all those things which touch most sensibly people who have been used to pomp.  I made my court to him, and haunted his levee with assiduity.  In return to this behaviour—­which was the pure effect of my goodwill, and which no duty that I owed his Grace, no obligation that I had to him, imposed upon me—­I have great reason to suspect that he went at least half way in all which was said or done against me.  He threw himself