ON THE ROAD TO CALAIS (see p. 4) _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE THE FORTUNE-TELLER, AFTER ARNOULT 36 A FRENCH COQUETTE AT HER TOILET-TABLE 66 THE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH AS A LEADER OF FASHION 70 "L'ANGLAIS," POPULAR REPRESENTATION OF AN ENGLISHMAN, _c._ 1670, AFTER BONNART 74 A SCHEME OF THE PERSECUTION 100 JEAN CLAUDE, THE HUGUENOT DIVINE 120 LOUIS XIV. DESTROYS HERETICAL BOOKS 140 "NOUVELLES ORDINAIRES DE LONDRES," NUMBER I 156 AT VERSAILLES, AFTER BONNART 164 THE FRENCH TAILOR, AFTER ARNOULT 168 PIERRE BAYLE, REFUGEE AND MAN OF LETTERS 204 JEAN-BAPTISTE COLBERT, MARQUIS DE SEIGNELAY, SECRETARY OF STATE, 1690, AFTER MIGNARD 222 ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY CHAPTER I FROM PARIS TO LONDON UNDER THE MERRY MONARCH "The French," wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "are the most travelled people. The English nobility travel, the French nobility do not; the French people travel, the English people do not." Strange as the fact appears, our forefathers in the seventeenth century, even as in the eighteenth, wandered over England as well as Spain or Italy, but they drew up their wills before setting out. The nobility travelled little; only a royal injunction would cause a gentleman to forsake Versailles; the ambassadors left with reluctance. But there followed a suite of attachés, secretaries, and valets. One day, Secretary Hughes de Lionne had a mind to send his son to London. The young marquis was entrusted to the charge of three grave ambassadors; good advice therefore he did not lack, and we must believe his journey was not altogether distasteful as he was seen to weep when the day came for him to return.[1] Next to official envoys stood unofficial agents, gentlemen who preferred exile to a more rigorous punishment; lastly, mere adventurers. Not a few Frenchmen came over to England on business purposes. The Bordeaux wine merchant, the Rouen printer, the Paris glovemaker, could not always trust their English agents when some difficult question arose. Cardinal Mazarin's envoy mentions in his dispatches the "numerous Bordeaux merchants in London, some of whom are Catholics."[2] At the Restoration there existed a kind of French Chamber of Commerce, and, as early as 1663, the ambassadors extol the adroitness of one Dumas, who appears to have played the part of an unofficial consul-general.[3]