“‘Good morning, General,’ he said, on entering, to the Prince, ‘I will take that place for you in a fortnight. Have you any books here? Do you know in Russia those of a M. Vauban and a certain Coëhorn?[72] I should like to look them over before beginning.’ You may fancy Potemkin’s astonishment. ‘What a man!’ he said to me, ‘I do not know if he is an engineer, but I know he is French. Ask him a few questions.’ I did so, and he admitted he was an engineer for roads and bridges. “Baron de Stad, who is here, delights me. He also is a thorough Frenchman; annoying the Prince, unpleasant to every one, writing charming verses, hating the petulance of Roger,[73] with whom he is perpetually quarrelling, and going gallantly into action, though declaring all the time that he is dying of fright. ‘Behold,’ says he, ‘how nature suffers; my horse himself trembles, and cares no more for glory than I do.’ We have seen another personage, as ridiculous as his name, which is Gigandé, a lieutenant in the guards of the Abbé de Porentruy. Yesterday he was robbed. Furious, he exclaimed, with his Swiss accent: ‘_Che me lèfe, che m’égorge les pieds pour aller tout te suite faire mes blaintes à un chéneral et il me tit: ‘Si c’est un soltat, che vous ferai rentre, mais, si c’est un officier, cela sera tifficile._’[74] “Another Frenchman, whose name is M. Second, came to consult me about an affair of honour. ‘For I see, sir,’ he said, ‘that I shall be forced to fight!’ I assured him that if he spoke in that way to everybody he would have no need of a man of his own name; that was a good piece of nonsense, was it not? “Shall I tell you one of my innocent amusements? I place my dromedaries in the way of the gilded staff, when by chance ‘_Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre_’ (Marlborough goes off to the wars).[75] The other day two or three generals were thrown, half the escort upset, and the other half sent flying. “Ah, Charles, when shall we meet again, at Stamboul or at Bel Œil? If only the Emperor and my Russian General would not stand on such ceremony about crossing the Save and the Bog as they would do to go through a door, we should soon upset the _Sublime Porte_, and should meet where I said. _Then, my dear Cinéas_, etc., etc. In the meanwhile let us love each other wherever we are.”