reimbursed me
to the amount of a farthing. This, however, did not prevent my giving a
small part of the produce of the passports to the Abbe de Binis, a good
creature, and who was far from pretending to have the least right to any
such thing. If he was obliging to me my politeness to him was an
equivalent, and we always lived together on the best of terms.

On the first trial I made of his talents in my official functions,
I found him less troublesome than I expected he would have been,
considering he was a man without experience, in the service of an
ambassador who possessed no more than himself, and whose ignorance and
obstinacy constantly counteracted everything with which common-sense and
some information inspired me for his service and that of the king. The
next thing the ambassador did was to connect himself with the Marquis
Mari, ambassador from Spain, an ingenious and artful man, who, had he
wished so to do, might have led him by the nose, yet on account of the
union of the interests of the two crowns he generally gave him good
advice, which might have been of essential service, had not the other, by
joining his own opinion, counteracted it in the execution. The only
business they had to conduct in concert with each other was to engage the
Venetians to maintain their neutrality. These did not neglect to give
the strongest assurances of their fidelity to their engagement at the
same time that they publicly furnished ammunition to the Austrian troops,
and even recruits under pretense of desertion. M. de Montaigu, who I
believe wished to render himself agreeable to the republic, failed not on
his part, notwithstanding my representation to make me assure the
government in all my despatches, that the Venetians would never violate
an article of the neutrality. The obstinacy and stupidity of this poor
wretch made me write and act extravagantly: I was obliged to be the agent
of his folly, because he would have it so, but he sometimes rendered my
employment insupportable and the functions of it almost impracticable.
For example, he insisted on the greatest part of his despatches to the
king, and of those to the minister, being written in cipher, although
neither of them contained anything that required that precaution. I
represented to him that between the Friday, the day the despatches from
the court arrived, and Saturday, on which ours were sent off, there was
not sufficient time to write so much in cipher, and