ys,
nothing more was heard of the great vizier's letter. "Such was our
fortunate escape," says the secretary, "from the friendly but fatal
interference of the sultan, than which the _sieur_ dreaded nothing so
much."

Many secret agents of the different powers were spinning their dark
intrigues; and often, when discovered or disconcerted, the creatures
were again at their "dirty work." These agents were conveniently
disavowed or acknowledged by their employers. The Abbe Cyre was an
active agent of the emperor's, and though not publicly accredited, was
still hovering about. In Lithuania he had contrived matters so well as
to have gained over that important province for the archduke; and was
passing through Prussia to hasten to communicate with the emperor, but
"some honest men," _quelques bons personnages_, says the French
secretary, and no doubt some good friends of his master, "took him by
surprise, and laid him up safely in the castle of Marienburgh, where
truly he was a little uncivilly used by the soldiers, who rifled his
portmanteau and sent us his papers, when we discovered all his foul
practices." The emperor, it seems, was angry at the arrest of his secret
agent; but as no one had the power of releasing the Abbe Cyre at that
moment, what with receiving remonstrances and furnishing replies, the
time passed away, and a very troublesome adversary was in safe custody
during the election. The dissensions between the catholics and the
evangelicals were always on the point of breaking out; but Montluc
succeeded in quieting these inveterate parties by terrifying their
imaginations with sanguinary civil wars, and invasions of the Turks and
the Tartars. He satisfied the catholics with the hope that time would
put an end to heresy, and the evangelicals were glad to obtain a truce
from persecution. The day before the election Montluc found himself so
confident, that he despatched a courier to the French court, and
expressed himself in the true style of a speculative politician, that
_des douze tables du Damier nous en avons les Neufs assures_.

There were preludes to the election; and the first was probably in
acquiescence with a saturnalian humour prevalent in some countries,
where the lower orders are only allowed to indulge their taste for the
mockery of the great at stated times and on fixed occasions. A droll
scene of a mock election, as well as combat, took place between the
numerous Polish pages, who, saith the grav