This was the hey-day of European adventure in the East. France, still under the influence of feudal institutions, continued to send out brave young men who longed, while providing for themselves, to restore the influence of their country in India, shaken as it had been by the ill success of Dupleix, Lally, and Law. The native princes, on the other side, were not backward in availing themselves of this new species of wardog. A Frenchman was worth his weight in gold; even an Anglo-Indian — the race is now relegated to the office-stool — fetched, we may say, his weight in silver. But men of the latter class, though not deficient in valour, and not without special advantages from their knowledge of the people and their language, were not so fully trusted. Doubtless the French officers would be more serviceable in a war with England; and that contingency was probably never long absent from the thoughts of the native chiefs. With the exception of the Musalman Viceroys of Audh and the Deccan, every native power dreaded the advance of the English, and desired their destruction. In fact, now that the Empire was fallen, a general Hindu revival had taken its place, the end of which was not seen till the Sikhs were finally subdued in 1849. Holkar's new army was commanded by a French officer, whose name variously spelt, was perhaps du Drenec. He was the son of an officer in the Royal navy of France, and is described as an accomplished and courteous gentleman. He usually receives from contemporary writers the title of Chevalier, and his conduct sustained the character of a well-born soldier. 1792. — The Patel lost no time in pushing his success in the only quarter where he now had anything to fear. The combination of the Nana in the cabinet and Holkar with an Europeanized army in the field, was a serious menace to his power; and with enterprising versatility he resolved at once to counteract it. With this view he obtained khillats of investiture, for the Peshwa and for himself, from the Emperor, and departed for Puna, where he arrived after a slow triumphal progress, on the 11th of June, 1792. On the 20th of the same month the ceremony took place with circumstances of great magnificence; the successful deputy endeavouring to propitiate the hostility of the Nana by appearing in his favourite character of the Beadle, and carrying the Peshwa's slippers, while the latter sate splendidly attired upon a counterfeit of the peacock throne. All men have their foibles, and Sindhia's was histrionism, which imposed on no one. The thin assumption of humility by a dictator was despised, and the splendid caparisons of the nominal chief were ridiculed by the Mahrattas and Brahmans of the old school.