a man of honour to take
so great an advantage, as to avail himself of the opportunity offered, by
killing a man who had only one life to dispose of, when there were so
many with a prior claim, who were anxious to destroy him 'en societe'. I
Bid M. de Calonne,' continued the Count, 'first get out of that scrape,
as the English boxers do when their eyes are closed up after a pitched
battle. He has been playing at blind man's buff, but the poverty to
which he has reduced so many of our tradespeople has torn the English
bandage from his eyes!' For three or four days the Comte de Vergennes
visited publicly, and showed himself everywhere in and about Paris; but
M. de Calonne was so well convinced of the truth of the old fox's satire
that he pocketed his annoyance, and no more was said about fighting.
Indeed, the Comte de Vergennes gave hints of being able to show that M.
de Calonne had been bribed into the treaty."

[The Princesse de Lamballe has alluded in a former page to the happiness
which the Queen enjoyed during the visits of the foreign Princes to the
Court of France. Her papers contain a few passages upon the opinions Her
Majesty entertained of the royal travellers; which, although in the order
of time they should have been mentioned before the peace with England,
yet, not to disturb the chain of the narrative, respecting the connection
with the Princesse de Lamballe, of the prevailing libels, and the
partiality shown towards the English, I have reserved them for the
conclusion of the present chapter. The timidity of the Queen in the
presence of the illustrious strangers, and her agitation when about to
receive them, have, I think, been already spoken of. Upon the subject of
the royal travellers themselves, and other personages, the Princess
expresses herself thus:]

"The Queen had never been an admirer of Catharine II. Notwithstanding
her studied policy for the advancement of civilization in her internal
empire, the means which, aided by the Princess Dashkoff, she made use of
to seat herself on the imperial throne of her weak husband, Peter the
Third, had made her more understood than esteemed. Yet when her son, the
Grand Duke of the North,--[Afterwards the unhappy Emperor Paul.]--and the
Grand Duchess, his wife, came to France, their description of Catharine's
real character so shocked the maternal sensibility of Marie Antoinette
that she could scarcely hear the name of the Empress without shuddering.
The G