Though he was known by his education and spirit to have possessed all those qualities which were requisite for the perfect soldier, uniting a clear head and solid judgment to a light and joyous, but intrepid heart, he was found to be equally qualified for the civil service of the State; thus at the age of five-and-twenty he was sent by Louis XV. to the court of Russia on a political mission of importance. On this duty he acquitted himself ably, his fidelity on one hand securing the confidence of the king his master, by his address and winning manner; on the other, obtaining the esteem and admiration of the Empress Catherine, whose husband, Peter the Great, had died about a year before. On his return to France in 1725 he proceeded to Versailles, where Louis XV., who had then attained his majority, and taken the reins of government from the Regent Duke of Orleans, received him in the most gracious manner, and promoted him to the rank of colonel of infantry; and at the head of his regiment he had the good fortune to acquit himself with distinction wherever he was employed. He stood high in the favour of the two ministers who succeeded the Duke of Orleans, namely, the Duke de Bourbon and Cardinal Fleury, then in his seventy-third year, a mild and amiable prelate, under whose moderate and conciliatory counsels France enjoyed many years of peace and tranquillity. During service in France, Lally, though somewhat proud and lofty in his manner, succeeded in gaining the esteem and affection of the officers of his regiment, among whom--even in those days of incessant duelling--he was fortunately successful in maintaining the most perfect union and harmony, while by his unalterable firmness subordination was equally maintained. Thus had passed the time until 1745, when Prince Charles Edward Stuart projected his gallant and unfortunate rising among the clans in the Scottish Highlands. Entering warmly into the design of restoring the hapless House of Stuart, under which his father had served long and faithfully, and with whom he had eaten the bread of exile, Colonel Lally came boldly over to London. While his ostensible object was to recover certain lands in Ireland, to which he averred his father had a claim, his real errand was to serve the young Prince of Scotland, to animate his friends, to excite the malcontents, to promise money, titles, and prepare the Jacobites of South Britain for the tempest that was gathering among the mountains of the north. By his boldness and determination Lally met with the utmost success in London; but being somewhat unwary, his plans and presence were discovered and revealed by a spy to the Duke of Cumberland, who procured immediate orders for his arrest. Fortunately, however, Lally escaped those shambles to which "the butcher" of the clans had doomed him, and escaping to France about the time Culloden was fought, resumed the command of his regiment.