e has become since;
but he never was good-looking, nor had he any nobility in his manner.
His eyes were pretty good, but his nose, and two large teeth which he
displayed whenever he opened his mouth, completely spoilt his face. He
was besides always very filthy, and his coarse hair was never dressed.

This Prince is little addicted to women, and, during the whole time that
he has been here, I never heard one mentioned who has pleased him, or
whom he has distinguished or visited more than another.

His mother took no care of him; she brought him up like a scullion, and
liked better to stake her money at play than to expend it upon her
youngest son. This is the ordinary practice of women in this country.

They will not yet believe that the Persian Ambassador was an impostor;

[This embassy was always equivocal, and even something more. From
all that can be understood of it, it would seem that a Minister of
one of the Persian provinces, a sort of Intendant de Languedoc, as
we might say, had commissioned this pretended Ambassador to manage
for him some commercial affairs with certain merchants, and that for
his own amusement the agent chose to represent the Persian
Ambassador. It is said, too, that Pontchartrain, under whose
department this affair fell, would not expose the trick, that the
King might be amused, and that he might recommend himself to His
Majesty's favour by making him believe that the Sophy had sent him
an Ambassador.--Notes to Dangeau's Journal.]

it is quite certain that he was a clumsy fellow, although he had some
sense. There was an air of magnificence about the way in which he gave
audience. He prevailed upon a married woman, who was pregnant by him,
to abjure Christianity. It is true she was not a very respectable
person, being the illegitimate daughter of my son's chief almoner, the
Abbe de Grancey, who always kept a little seraglio. In order to carry
her away with him, the Ambassador had her fastened up in a box filled
with holes, and then begged that no person might be allowed to touch it,
being, as he said, filled with the sacred books written by Mahomet
himself, which would be polluted by the contact of Christians. Upon this
pretence the permission was given, and by these means the woman was
carried off. I cannot believe the story which is told of this Ambassador
having had 10,000 louis d'or given him.

I had the misfortune to d