the Abbe
de Binis, yet as the correspondence was very extensive and there was a
war, I was a good deal employed. I applied to business the greatest part
of every morning, and on the days previous to the departure of the
courier, in the evenings, and sometimes till midnight. The rest of my
time I gave to the study of the political professions I had entered upon,
and in which I hoped, from my successful beginning, to be advantageously
employed. In fact I was in favor with every one; the ambassador himself
spoke highly of my services, and never complained of anything I did for
him; his dissatisfaction proceeded from my having insisted on quitting
him, inconsequence of the useless complaints I had frequently made on
several occasions. The ambassadors and ministers of the king with whom
we were in correspondence complimented him on the merit of his secretary,
in a manner by which he ought to have been flattered, but which in his
poor head produced quite a contrary effect. He received one in
particular relative to an affair of importance, for which he never
pardoned me.

He was so incapable of bearing the least constraint, that on the
Saturday, the day of the despatches for most of the courts he could not
contain himself, and wait till the business was done before he went out,
and incessantly pressing me to hasten the despatches to the king and
ministers, he signed them with precipitation, and immediately went I know
not where, leaving most of the other letters without signing; this
obliged me, when these contained nothing but news, to convert them into
journals; but when affairs which related to the king were in question it
was necessary somebody should sign, and I did it. This once happened
relative to some important advice we had just received from M. Vincent,
charge des affaires from the king, at Vienna. The Prince Lobkowitz was
then marching to Naples, and Count Gages had just made the most memorable
retreat, the finest military manoeuvre of the whole century, of which
Europe has not sufficiently spoken. The despatch informed us that a man,
whose person M. Vincent described, had set out from Vienna, and was to
pass by Venice, in his way into Abruzzo, where he was secretly to stir up
the people at the approach of the Austrians.

In the absence of M. le Comte de Montaigu, who did not give himself the
least concern about anything, I forwarded this advice to the Marquis de
l'Hopital, so apropos, that it is perhaps