there. What more natural than that the two young men should travel in
company? What less natural than that the two young men, meeting each
other by pure accident in Paris, should be charged by the ambassador with
any packet of consequence, he having his own couriers, and the use, for
the return journey, of those sent to him from Spain? In fact, it may be
believed that these young people themselves were perfectly ignorant of
what they were charged with, and simply believed that, as they were going
to Spain, the ambassador merely seized the occasion to entrust them with
some packet of no special importance.

They set out, then, at the commencement of December, furnished with
passports from the King--(for Alberoni had openly caused almost a rupture
between the two Courts)--with a Spanish banker, who had been established
in England, where he had become bankrupt for a large amount, so that the
English government had obtained permission from the Regent to arrest him,
if they could, anywhere in France. It will sometimes be perceived that I
am ill-instructed in this affair; but I can only tell what I know: and as
for the rest, I give my conjectures. In fact, the Abbe Dubois kept
everybody so much in the dark, that even M. le Duc d'Orleans was not
informed of all.

Whether the arrival of the Abbe Portocarrero in Paris, and his short stay
there, seemed suspicious to the Abbe Dubois and his emissaries, or
whether he had corrupted some of the principal people of the Spanish
Ambassador and this Court, and learned that these young men were charged
with a packet of importance; whether there was no other mystery than the
bad company of the bankrupt banker, and that the anxiety of Dubois to
oblige his friends the English, induced him to arrest the three
travellers and seize their papers, lest the banker should have confided
his to the young men, I know not: but however it may have been, it is
certain that the Abbe Dubois arrested the three travellers at Poitiers,
and carried off their papers, a courier bringing these papers to him
immediately afterwards.

Great things sometimes spring from chance. The courier from Poitiers
entered the house of the Abbe Dubois just as the Regent entered the
opera. Dubois glanced over the papers, and went and related the news of
this capture to M. le Duc Orleans, as he left his box. This prince, who
was accustomed to shut himself up with his roues at that hour, did so
with a carelessness to which everyt