note 806: Saint Simon was certainly as good a judge of men as any
of those English grumblers who called Portland a dunce and a boor; Saint
Simon too had every opportunity of forming a correct judgment; for he
saw Portland in a situation full of difficulties; and Saint Simon says,
in one place, "Benting, discret, secret, poli aux autres, fidele a
son maitre, adroit en affaires, le servit tres utilement;" in another,
"Portland parut avec un eclat personnel, une politesse, un air de monde
et de cour, une galanterie et des graces qui surprirent; avec cela,
beaucoup de dignite, meme (le hauteur), mais avec discernement et un
jugement prompt sans rien de hasarde." Boufflers too extols Portland's
good breeding and tact. Boufflers to Lewis, July 9. 1697. This letter
is in the archives of the French Foreign Office. A translation will be
found in the valuable collection published by M. Grimblot.]

[Footnote 807: Boufflers to Lewis, June 21/July 1 1697; Lewis to
Boufflers, June 22/July 2; Boufflers to Lewis, June 25/July 5]

[Footnote 808: Boufflers to Lewis June 28/July 8, June 29/July 9 1697]

[Footnote 809: My account of this negotiation I have taken chiefly
from the despatches in the French Foreign Office. Translations of those
despatches have been published by M. Grimblot. See also Burnet, ii. 200,
201.

It has been frequently asserted that William promised to pay Mary of
Modena fifty thousand pounds a year. Whoever takes the trouble to
read the Protocol of Sept. 10/20 1697, among the Acts of the Peace of
Ryswick, will see that my account is correct. Prior evidently understood
the protocol as I understand it. For he says, in a letter to Lexington
of Sept. 17. 1697, "No. 2. is the thing to which the King consents as to
Queen Marie's settlements. It is fairly giving her what the law allows
her. The mediator is to dictate this paper to the French, and enter it
into his protocol; and so I think we shall come off a bon marche upon
that article."

It was rumoured at the time (see Boyer's History of King William III.
1703) that Portland and Boufflers had agreed on a secret article by
which it was stipulated that, after the death of William, the Prince of
Wales should succeed to the English throne. This fable has often been
repeated, but was never believed by men of sense, and can hardly, since
the publication of the letters which passed between Lewis and Boufflers,
find credit even with the weakest. Dalrymple and other writers i