judged there, not as a boy, but as a man; and from that moment there is
no appeal for character; it is fixed. To form that character
advantageously, you have three objects particularly to attend to: your
character as a man of morality, truth, and honor; your knowledge in the
objects of your destination, as a man of business; and your engaging and
insinuating address, air and manners, as a courtier; the sure and only
steps to favor.

Merit at courts, without favor, will do little or nothing; favor, without
merit, will do a good deal; but favor and merit together will do
everything. Favor at courts depends upon so many, such trifling, such
unexpected, and unforeseen events, that a good courtier must attend to
every circumstance, however little, that either does, or can happen; he
must have no absences, no DISTRACTIONS; he must not say, "I did not mind
it; who would have thought it?" He ought both to have minded, and to have
thought it. A chamber-maid has sometimes caused revolutions in courts
which have produced others in kingdoms. Were I to make my way to favor in
a court, I would neither willfully, nor by negligence, give a dog or a
cat there reason to dislike me. Two 'pies grieches', well instructed, you
know, made the fortune of De Luines with Lewis XIII. Every step a man
makes at court requires as much attention and circumspection, as those
which were made formerly between hot plowshares, in the Ordeal, or fiery
trials; which, in those times of ignorance and superstition, were looked
upon as demonstrations of innocence or guilt. Direct your principal
battery, at Hanover, at the D of N 's: there are many very weak places in
that citadel; where, with a very little skill, you cannot fail making a
great impression. Ask for his orders in everything you do; talk Austrian
and Anti-gallican to him; and, as soon as you are upon a foot of talking
easily to him, tell him 'en badinant', that his skill and success in
thirty or forty elections in England leave you no reason to doubt of his