“I found the duke exactly in the place where I had left him:  I asked him a thousand pardons for having made him wait so long, and thanked him a thousand times for his complaisance.  He told me I jested, that such compliments were unusual among friends; and to convince me that he had cordially rendered me this piece of service, he would, by all means, hold my horse while I was mounting.  I returned him his cloak, bade him good night, and went back to my lodgings, equally satisfied with my mistress and my rival.  This,” continued he, “proves that a little patience and address are sufficient to disarm the anger of the fair, to turn even their tricks to a man’s advantage.”

It was in vain that the Chevalier de Grammont diverted the court with his stories, instructed by his example, and never appeared there but to inspire universal joy; for a long time he was the only foreigner in fashion.  Fortune, jealous of the justice which is done to merit, and desirous of seeing all human happiness depend on her caprice, raised up against him two competitors for the pleasure he had long enjoyed of entertaining the English court; and these competitors were so much the more dangerous, as the reputation of their several merits had preceded their arrival, in order to dispose the suffrages of the court in their favour.

They came to display, in their own persons, whatever was the most accomplished either among the men of the sword, or of the gown.  The one was the Marquis de Flamarens, the sad object of the sad elegies of the Countess de la Suse, the other was the president Tambonneau, the most humble and most obedient servant and admirer of the beauteous Luynes.  As they arrived together, they exerted every endeavour to shine in concert:  their talents were as different as their persons; Tambonneau, who was tolerably ugly, founded his hopes upon a great store of wit, which, however, no person in England could find out; and Flamarens, by his air and mien, courted admiration, which was flatly denied him.

They had agreed mutually to assist each other, in order to succeed in their intentions; and therefore, in their first visits, the one appeared in state, and the other was the spokesman.  But they found the ladies in England of a far different taste from those who had rendered them famous in France:  the rhetoric of the one had no effect on the fair sex, and the fine mien of the other distinguished him only in a minuet, which he first introduced into England, and which he danced with tolerable success.  The English court had been too long accustomed to the solid wit of Saint Evremond, and the natural and singular charms of his hero, to be seduced by appearances; however, as the English have, in general, a sort of predilection in favour of anything that has the appearance of bravery, Flamarens was better received on account of a duel, which, obliging him to leave his own country, was a recommendation to him in England.