There was another circumstance connected with the rebellion which possessed for me an individual and deep interest. A man of the name of Barnard had been executed in England for seditious and treasonable practices. I took especial pains to ascertain every particular respecting him. I learned that he was young, of inconsiderable note, but esteemed clever; and had, long previously to the death of the Queen, been secretly employed by the friends of the Chevalier. This circumstance occasioned me much internal emotion, though there could be no doubt that the Barnard whom I had such cause to execrate had only borrowed from this minion the disguise of his name. The Regent received me with all the graciousness and complaisance for which he was so remarkable. To say the truth, my mission had been extremely fortunate in its results; the only cause in which the Regent was concerned the interests of which Peter the Great appeared to disregard was that of the Chevalier; but I had been fully instructed on that head anterior to my legation. There appears very often to be a sort of moral fitness between the beginning and the end of certain alliances or acquaintances. This sentiment is not very clearly expressed. I am about to illustrate it by an important event in my political life. During my absence Dubois had made rapid steps towards being a great man. He was daily growing into power, and those courtiers who were neither too haughty nor too honest to bend the knee to so vicious yet able a minion had already singled him out as a fit person to flatter and to rise by. For me, I neither sought nor avoided him: but he was as civil towards me as his _brusque_ temper permitted him to be towards most persons; and as our careers were not likely to cross one another, I thought I might reckon on his neutrality, if not on his friendship. Chance turned the scale against me. One day I received an anonymous letter, requesting me to be, at such an hour, at a certain house in the Rue------. It occurred to me as no improbable supposition that the appointment might relate to my individual circumstances, whether domestic or political, and I certainly had not at the moment any ideas of gallantry in my brain. At the hour prescribed I appeared at the place of assignation. My mind misgave me when I saw a female conduct me into a little chamber hung with tapestry descriptive of the loves of Mars and Venus. After I had cooled my heels in this apartment about a quarter of an hour, in sailed a tall woman, of a complexion almost Moorish. I bowed; the lady sighed. An _eclaircissement_ ensued; and I found that I had the good fortune to be the object of a _caprice_ in the favourite mistress of the Abbe Dubois. Nothing was further from my wishes! What a pity it is that one cannot always tell a woman one’s mind! I attempted a flourish about friendship, honour, and the respect due to the _amante_ of the most intimate _ami_ I had in the world.