If the letter quoted by Carlyle were genuine, as he accepted it, (also as it was evidently accepted by Lord John Russell,)[396] and as the family of Montcalm seem to believe, it would indicate for the soldier all that was claimed by his descendant, when, after speaking of his “political foresight,” he added that it “was proved by one of his letters, in which he made a remarkable prophecy concerning the American Revolution.”[397] Certainly,--if the letter is not an invention; but such is the present impression. On the half-title of the original pamphlet, in the Library of Harvard University, Sparks, whose judgment is of great weight, has written: “The letters are unquestionably spurious.” Others unite with him. It is impossible to read the papers in the “Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society,” already quoted, and the pungent note of Henry Stevens, in his “Bibliotheca Historica,” under the title of the much-debated pamphlet, without feeling, that, whatever may have been the merits of Montcalm as a soldier, his title as a prophet cannot be accepted. His name is introduced here that I may not omit an instance which has attracted attention in more than one generation. DUC DE CHOISEUL, 1767, 1768. Another Frenchman in this far-sighted list was the Comte de Stainville, afterwards Duc de Choiseul, born 28th June, 1719, and died 8th May, 1785. His brilliant career as diplomatist and statesman was preceded by a career of arms with rapid promotion, so that at the age of forty he became lieutenant-general. Meanwhile he was ambassador at Rome and then at Vienna, the two pinnacles of diplomatic life. In 1758 he became Minister of Foreign Affairs, also duke and peer; then Minister of War, and of the Marine; but in 1766 he resumed the Foreign Office, which he held till 1770, when he was disgraced. The King could not pardon the contempt with which, although happy in the smiles of Madame de Pompadour, the Prime-Minister rejected the advances of her successor, the ignoble Du Barry; and he was exiled from court to live in his château of Chanteloup, in the valley of the Loire, where, dispensing a magnificent hospitality, he was consoled by a loving wife and devoted friends.