Spain and England are the principal quarters from which we are to dread
hostilities. Spain we must guard against; England we must propitiate:
the latter object is easy in England in any case, whether James or
George be uppermost. For whoever is king in England will have quite
enough to do at home to make him agree willingly enough to peace abroad.
The former requires a less simple and a more enlarged policy. I fear
the ambition of the Queen of Spain and the turbulent genius of her
minion Alberoni. We must fortify ourselves by new forms of alliance, at
various courts, which shall at once defend us and intimidate our
enemies. We wish to employ some nobleman of ability and address, on a
secret mission to Russia: will you be that person? Your absence from
Paris will be but short; you will see a very droll country, and a very
droll sovereign; you will return hither, doubly the rage, and with a
just claim to more important employment hereafter. What say you to the
proposal?"

"I must hear more," said I, "before I decide."

The Abbe renewed. It is needless to repeat all the particulars of the
commission that he enumerated. Suffice it that, after a brief
consideration, I accepted the honour proposed to me. The Abbe wished me
joy, relapsed into his ordinary strain of coarse levity for a few
minutes, and then, reminding me that I was to attend the Regent on the
morrow, departed. It was easy to see that in the mind of that subtle
and crafty ecclesiastic, with whose manoeuvres private intrigues were
always blended with public, this offer of employment veiled a desire to
banish me from the immediate vicinity of the good-natured Regent, whose
favour the aspiring Abbe wished at that exact moment exclusively to
monopolize. Mere men of pleasure he knew would not interfere with his
aims upon the Prince; mere men of business still less: but a man who was