li de
Foulay, the Ambassador of the Knights of Malta, being persuaded that the
Cabinet of Versailles was effectually desirous of peace, was, as he had
been before, the mediator. The Bailli was deceived. The Duc de
Choiseul, the then Prime Minister, indecently enough threw Edelsheim into
the Bastille, in order to search or seize his papers, which, however,
were secured elsewhere. Edelsheim was released on the morrow, but
obliged to depart the kingdom by the way of Turin, as related by
Frederick II. in his "History of the Seven Years' War." On his return he
was disgraced, and continued so until 1778; when he again was used as
emissary to various Courts of Germany. In 1786 the Elector of Baden sent
him to Berlin, on the ascension of Frederick William II., as a
complimentary envoy. This Monarch, when he saw him, could not forbear
laughing at the high wisdom of the Court that selected such a personage
for such an embassy, and of his own sagacity in accepting it. He quitted
the capital of Prussia as he came there, with an opinion of himself that
the royal smiles of contempt had neither altered nor diminished.

You see, by this account, that Edelsheim has long been a partisan of the
pillage of Germany called indemnities; and long habituated to affronts,
as well as to plots. To all his other half qualities, half modesty can
hardly be added, when he calls himself, or suffers himself to be called,
"the Talleyrand of Carlsrhue." He accompanied his Prince last year to
Mentz; where this old Sovereign was not treated by Bonaparte in the most
decorous or decent manner, being obliged to wait for hours in his
antechamber, and afterwards stand during the levees, or in the
drawing-rooms of Napoleon or of his wife, without the offer of a chair,
or an invitation to sit down. It was here where, by a secret treaty,
Bonaparte became the Sovereign of Baden, if sovereignty consists in the
disposal of the financial and military resources of a State; and they
were agreed to be assigned over to him whenever he should deem it proper
or necessary to invade the German Empire, in return for his protection
against the Emperor of Germany, who can have no more interest than intent
to attack a country so distant from his hereditary dominions, and whose
Sovereign is, besides, the grandfather of the consort of his nearest and
best ally.

Talleyrand often amused himself at Mentz with playing on the vanity and
affected consequence of Edelsheim, who