I have received to-day a great visit,--that of my hero, the czar [Peter the Great]. I think he has very good manners, taking that expression in the sense of the manners of a person without affectation or ceremony. He has much judgment; he speaks bad German, but he makes himself understood without difficulty, and he converses very well. He is polite to everybody, and is much liked. He went to Saint-Cyr and saw the old _guenipe_, who keeps herself completely retired there; no one can say that she has meddled in the slightest thing; which makes me think that woman has still some project in her head, though I can't imagine what it can be. She used to reproach me, and say it was a shame I had no ambition and never took part in anything, and one day I answered: "If a person had intrigued a great deal to become Madame, might she not be permitted to enjoy that title in tranquillity? Imagine that to be my case, and leave me in peace." She said, "You are very obstinate." I answered: "No, madame, but I like my peace and I regard your ambition as pure vanity." I really thought she would burst her skin, she was so angry. She said: "Make the attempt; you will be aided." "No, madame," I replied; "when I think that you, who have a hundred-fold more cleverness than I, have not been able to maintain yourself at Court as you wished, what would happen to me, a poor foreigner, who knows nothing of intrigues and does not like them?" She was angry and said: "Fie! you are good for nothing." She never could forgive the king for not having declared her queen. She gave herself out to the King of England as so pious and humble that the queen took her for a saint. The old _guenipe_ knew very well that I was a German who could never in my life endure a misalliance, and she imagined that it was partly because of me that the king would not acknowledge his marriage. The hatred she bore me came from that; as long as the queen lived she did not hate me. After the death of the king, and since we left Versailles, my son has not seen the old woman. The mistresses of the late king did not tarnish his glory as much as she did; she has drawn upon France the greatest misfortunes. She occasioned the persecution of the Reformers; she caused the price of wheat to rise, which brought a famine; she helped the ministers to rob the king; she was guilty of the death of the king in consequence of the worry she caused him about that Constitution [the bull Unigenitus]; she made the marriage of my son, and tried to put the bastards on the throne. In short, she threw all things into confusion and ruined them. The ministers also served the king very ill. The king never thought that his will would be sustained. He said to several persons: "They made me write my will and other things; I did it to get peace, but I know that all that will not stand hereafter." PARIS, 1717.