ination of the head, which,
however, surprised the public. At his first interview with the little
king, he took up the child in his arms, and kissed him over and over
again, "with an air of tenderness and politeness which was full of
nature, and nevertheless intermixed with a something of grandeur,
equality of rank, and, slightly, superiority of age; for all that was
distinctly perceptible." We know how he went to see Madame de Maintenon.
One of his first visits was to the church of the Sorbonne; when he caught
sight of Richelieu's monument, he ran up to it, embraced the statue, and,
"Ah! great man," said he, "if thou wert still alive, I would give thee
one half of my kingdom to teach me to govern the other."

[Illustration: Peter the Great and Little Louis XV----82]

The czar was for seeing everything, studying everything; everything
interested him, save the court and its frivolities; he did not go to
visit the princesses of the blood, and confined himself to saluting them
coldly, whilst passing along a terrace; but he was present at a sitting
of the Parliament and of the academies, he examined the organization of
all the public establishments, he visited the shops of the celebrated
workmen, he handled the coining-die whilst there was being struck in his
honor a medal bearing a Fame with these words: _Vires acquiret eundo_
('Twill gather strength as it goes.) He received a visit from the doctors
of the Sorbonne, who brought him a memorial touching the reunion of the
Greek and Latin Churches. "I am a mere soldier," said he, "but I will
gladly have an examination made of the memorial you present to me."
Amidst all his chatting, studying, and information-hunting, Peter the
Great did not forget the political object of his trip. He wanted to
detach France from Sweden, her heretofore faithful ally, still receiving
a subsidy which the czar would fain have appropriated to himself.
Together with his own alliance, he promised that of Poland and of
Prussia. "France has nothing to fear from the emperor," he said; as for
King George, whom he detested, "if any rupture should take place between
him and the Regent, Russia would suffice to fill towards France the place
of England as well as of Sweden."

Thanks to the ability of Dubois, the Regent felt himself infeoffed to
England; he gave a cool reception to the overtures of the czar, who
proposed a treaty of alliance and commerce. Prussia had already
concluded secretly with Fr